Forty Weeks
by TheMortician'sDaughter
Summary: Pepper finds out she's pregnant with Tony's baby, but only after she and Tony ended things and he's moved on to fall in love with Bruce. It's a hot mess, in which Tony and Pepper still have unresolved feelings for each other, Bruce is lovably understanding yet wildly conflicted, and somehow it turns out that maybe three parents are better than two, anyway.
1. 12 Weeks

"I can't believe she's _pregnant."_

Tony sat hunched over on the bed, elbows resting on his knees with his head hung in his hands. He slowly exhaled the breath he'd been holding as he opened his eyes, finding the grey of the carpet in front of his eyes. "How did this even _happen?"_

Bruce was perched on the bed beside Tony, moving his hand along his boyfriend's back in smooth, sweeping motions while he tried his best not to look too amused. "Well…" He was fairly sure that Tony was more concerned with the _what_ rather than the _how,_ but he would let the other man talk himself through it however he needed to. "It's a fairly common biological process. Often occurs naturally between a man and a woman, but some recent technological advancements have made it possible—"

"It's mine, Bruce. She told me it's _mine."_ Tony picked up his head for a moment, shooting a skeptical look in Bruce's direction. "I mean, honestly. Do you really think for one second that Pepper Potts, inhumanly-busy-CEO-who-works-27-hours-a-day _Pepper Potts,_ would suddenly decide she wants a kid and go to a sperm bank? Come _on._ "

"She may have." Bruce shrugged. He knew damn well that Pepper wouldn't tell Tony something like this and not mean it, but he was really just trying to help the other man calm down.

"She wouldn't. I know her. She would only want the best possible option to father her kid, and obviously that's me," Tony rambled, and after a brief pause, he looked at Bruce again. "Next to you, of course."

"I can't have kids, Tony."

"Yeah, I know. That makes me the best option." Tony's mouth quirked into an almost-smirk until he exhaled a heavy sigh and flopped back onto the bed. "And not to mention that we were all under the impression that she couldn't even have kids in the first place. What the hell am I supposed to do, Bruce? I can't be a dad."

Bruce watched his partner fall back to the bed, bouncing a little bit himself under the impact. "Well, I don't know much about being a dad," he started, reaching out to touch Tony's shoulder. "But what I do know," he continued, trailing his hand slowly down Tony's arm, "is that I've never seen you run into something that you can't figure out." His fingers had ended up twined with Tony's by the time he was finished speaking, and he squeezed gently to urge the other man to look at him. "I really don't doubt that you can figure this out."

 _Yeah, sure._ Tony sighed as he tucked his free arm behind his head, his eyes set on the ceiling despite Bruce's little tugs on his hand. Okay, Bruce was just trying to help. Tony got that, but he also got that Bruce probably couldn't even begin to understand how all of this felt right now. Everything just felt like some kind of sick joke; the timing, the situation, everything. This had to happen _now,_ months after he and Pepper had broken it off, and just when he was finally falling in love again.

He really didn't want this to happen _now._ In fact, he wasn't sure if he ever wanted it to happen at all.

"I don't know if I want to be a dad, Bruce."

It was the cold truth. This was the kind of opportunity that Tony never wanted to have, and it was at the top of that very short list. He'd always taken so much precaution with anyone he'd ever been with, always been so sure that he would never have to face the chance that he might end up in his own father's shoes.

Of course there wasn't any guarantee that Tony would be anything like Howard, but he still felt that tiny itch of worry in his mind anyway. He tried to distance himself from his father as much as he possibly could, but at times he just couldn't deny that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The last thing he wanted was to take a chance with a child of his own, and for that child's life to end up as disastrous as his own.

Well, apparently he hadn't been careful enough this time, because that chance was about to smack him across the face.

Tony's eyes continued to wander across the high ceiling until he felt the familiar pressure of Bruce settling on top of his hips. Normally Tony would have jumped at that feeling, but this time it wasn't suggestive or sexual or any of that. It was just comfort and closeness, the two things he could see in Bruce's warm gaze when he finally looked at the other man.

"I think you should talk to her," Bruce said, leaning forward to brush his hand over Tony's shoulder.

"What, you think I should just walk up to her and tell her that I don't want any part of this?" Tony asked in disbelief, huffing out a small, distressed sigh. "I can't do that. She's Pepper. I know that I'm me, but even _I_ wouldn't be that horrible."

Bruce fought back a sigh of his own. Always jumping to the most dramatic conclusions, Tony was. Sometimes Bruce wondered how he'd ever fallen in love with Tony's ridiculousness in addition to the rest of him. "No." He leaned forward over Tony, adjusting himself so he was essentially resting on top of the other man, and dropped a light kiss onto his lips. "Look, I'm not going to tell you what to do here, because I honestly wouldn't know what to do either if I was in your position. I'm just saying you should talk to her, try to understand and work something out. She's still a part of your life, Tony. This is important. _She's_ important."

Tony's eyes were left halfway shut after Bruce kissed him, and he didn't bother opening them any further as his partner spoke. "Yeah," he said quietly, lifting his arms from the bed to set them around Bruce's waist. "She is. I know. I just don't want to think about it right now. Can we just not think about it right now?"

For a brief moment, Bruce almost opened his mouth to say, ' _Okay, but you still need to talk to her,'_ but decided against it before the words could slip off his tongue. Tony was clearly very flustered and shocked and tired and… scared, probably. Tony was scared. It's just that Tony never verbally admitted when he was scared, which was exactly how Bruce knew.

So Bruce decided to listen to Tony and just not talk about it for now. He would be thinking about it, surely, thinking about how this would affect their lives and their work and their _everything_. He thought that maybe he should talk to Pepper himself, but not now—maybe not even tomorrow or the next day. For now, he just needed to lay there with Tony, quietly while he stroked a hand over his boyfriend's hair, and do his best to help them understand that both of their lives had just changed drastically.


	2. 14 Weeks

After a while of avoiding it, Tony decided that he needed to talk to Pepper.

He wished he could have said his decision was based on his own conscious and concern for the well-being of others, but really, it was Bruce. Bruce was right; Pepper was important, and she deserved better than Tony ignoring this, ignoring _her_ , because he didn't know how to deal with this yet. The problem wasn't going to go away any faster if he just avoided it for longer.

Well, then again, maybe thinking of the whole situation as a _problem_ was his problem. For all he knew, Pepper didn't see her pregnancy as problematic as Tony did. Maybe she was excited about it and wanted him to be too; maybe he _should_ be—

No. He knew her better than that. There was no way she could be _excited_ about this, not after the end of their relationship and the fact that Tony was dating a _man_ now and the toll a baby would take on her career…

 _Okay, stop._

Yeah, he needed to talk to her.

Tony shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket and walked towards the door to Pepper's office, essentially ignoring the receptionist outside as usual. They all knew who he was, and it wasn't like he could ever remember her name anyway. He shouldered through the door without bothering to knock, and let it fall shut behind him as he stepped in and stood in the center before Pepper's desk.

Pepper barely looked away from the papers on her desk when Tony walked in. There was really only one person who ever came in her office without knocking, so it _had_ to be him just by default. "Do you need something, Tony?" she asked, her tone not exactly annoyed, but uninterested at the very least.

"We should talk," Tony replied, fiddling with the inside of his jacket pocket. "About stuff."

"Stuff." Pepper's pen paused on the paper for a moment before she moved to scribble her signature on something else. "That's awfully vague."

"Come on, you know what _stuff_ I'm talking about. And clearly it's making you a little moody."

At that point, Pepper just dropped the pen and leaned back in her chair. She knew that tone of voice, and she definitely knew that look on his face once she saw it; he wasn't going to leave until she said _something._ "What part of it do you want to talk about, Tony?" she asked, "You made yourself pretty clear when I told you."

Tony flexed his jaw and took a few quiet steps forward, lowering himself into the chair before Pepper's desk. He had made himself pretty clear, hadn't he? The long, awkward silence followed by phrases and curses of disbelief had certainly been pretty clear; a clear expression of shock, Tony thought, but apparently Pepper had taken it differently.

Could he really blame her, though? Tony could vividly remember the split second that wounded look had been on her face before she shoved it under her typical blank mask. Yeah, he was an asshole about it, but only because he was _scared—_ except… maybe she was scared, too.

"Look, I just want to figure something out here. You need to work with me," Tony started, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the desk. "We've gotta work something out so we can deal with this, unless you…" He paused, not really sure how to say it, or even if he _should_ say it.

"Unless I what? Decide not to have it?" Well, Pepper beat him to the punch. "If that's what you want to happen, you could have just said it."

"That's not what I want," Tony replied quickly, scooting forward in his chair. _Shit._ Now he was just backpedaling, which sounded horrible, and this really, _really_ wasn't going the way he wanted it to. "Or, maybe… you know what, I don't know what I want, Pep. I don't know how to deal with this. Neither of us have ever wanted kids, and now we're apparently having one and we're not even together anymore, so I _really_ don't know what to do here. I can't fix this one in the workshop, so _please_ just try to work with me here." Tony sighed. He'd probably just said way too much, but as far as he was concerned, there wasn't much else he could do here other than run his mouth and hope that Pepper understood at least a little bit.

The look on Pepper's face said otherwise, though. She was trying to hide it underneath that emotionless poker face of hers, but Tony could still recognize the tiny glimmer of disappointment in her eyes. "You can't fix it," she repeated quietly. She dropped the pen she'd been twirling between her fingers to slide her hands into her lap below the desk, and through the translucent glass tabletop, Tony could see her slide one of her hands over her just slightly swollen stomach. "Well, I can't _fix_ it either, Tony. And I have a meeting in half an hour that I need to prepare for, so I think you should go."

"Pepper, that's not—"

"Just go, Tony. Please."

Tony hesitated for a moment before he decided that the better option was to just listen to her and leave. He muttered a quiet "fine" as he got up, keeping his gaze on her even if she'd already broken the eye contact, and shoved his hands back in his pockets as he turned to exit through the door.

 _Fix it._ Dammit. That was quite possibly one of the worst things he could have said. If Pepper hadn't already caught on to how Tony felt like this was a problem, she certainly did now, and _that_ was something that Tony really didn't know how to fix at all. Every time he blinked he saw that look in her eyes and the hand she'd put on her middle over his child—no, _their_ child—and he mentally kicked himself again, ripping the wound even wider.

Eventually, after making a few rounds around the residential area of the tower, Tony made it to the lounge where he found Bruce with his feet up and nose in a book ( _typical_ ). Tony shuffled over and plopped onto the sofa beside his boyfriend, heaving a sigh as he rested his head on the cushion behind it.

"Hey." Bruce looked up from the page he was turning after Tony settled down, and lifted an arm to slide it around the other man's shoulders. "How'd it go?"

"Could have went better," Tony replied. He closed his eyes when he felt Bruce's fingers thread through his hair, tilting his head to rest it at the base of Bruce's neck.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Nope."

"Okay." Bruce exhaled quietly, leaning over to rest his head on top of Tony's. He decided not to push it, so instead he just pressed a light kiss into Tony's hair before turning his eyes back to the book in his lap. "Maybe you can try again another time," he added softly a moment later.

"Yeah." That was Tony's basically obligatory agreement as he nestled closer to Bruce's side. "Maybe."


	3. 16 Weeks Part One

"Jarvis, what's the status on the quantum renormalization?"

"Progress is holding steady, Doctor. My estimated time of completion is approximately one hour and fourteen minutes. Can I be of further assistance?"

"No, that should be all for now. Thanks, Jarvis." Bruce waited for the AI's affirmation before the lab fell quiet again, the only sounds the various ticks and beeps of the machines and the scratch of Bruce's pen against paper. He'd spent most of the past few days down here, alone in the lab and mostly avoiding the world outside, really only leaving to drag Tony out of his workshop and into bed (that is, when Bruce actually remembered that he too needed sleep once in a while).

It wasn't that this was out of the ordinary, him and Tony spending most of their day apart. In fact, it was pretty normal—they'd leave in the morning, spend most of the day working on their research or current project, then meet up for lunch or occasionally cross paths in the hall and share a kiss or two. So, yeah, being alone in the lab all day was normal. But not seeing Tony a few times throughout the day, the minimal words exchanged between them at night, the consistently neutral expression on Tony's face… that wasn't.

Honestly, Bruce didn't know what to do. Ever since Tony had talked to Pepper (or fought or whatever it was, Tony wouldn't say) a few days prior, he'd been quiet and seemingly bothered. And from the brief encounter Bruce had with her in the kitchen earlier than day, so was Pepper. He wanted to help, he really did—but was it really his place? He wasn't involved, and he didn't think he should force himself to be. It was Tony and Pepper's kid; Tony and Pepper's issue to work out. Not his, even if he was the awkward third wheel who was dating said kid's father.

 _Whatever_. It would work out somehow, because if Tony and Pepper weren't going to find way, Bruce was going to have to.

"Doctor Banner," Jarvis' voice interrupted, pulling Bruce from his thoughts. "You have a visitor. Would you like me to let them in?"

"Yeah." Bruce blinked a few times, the scribbled equations on the paper in front of him finally coming back into focus. "Sure, go ahead. Thanks." He didn't take his eyes off the papers even when he heard the door slide open and then close again, figuring it had to be Tony—no one else ever bothered him down here. "Finally decide to talk to me again, did you?" he asked dryly.

"He's not talking to you either, huh?" Well, that wasn't Tony's voice.

"Oh." Bruce looked up and spun around in his chair, fixing his glasses so he could recognize the slender figure standing at the end of the table even if the red hair around her shoulders was a dead giveaway. "Pepper. Hi. I'm sorry, I-I thought—"

Pepper dismissed it with a simple shrug, leaning her hip against the edge of the table. "No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to just barge in here, I would have called first, but I guess I just wanted to…" She paused to gather her thoughts for a moment, "see how you were doing. So Tony's not talking to _you_?" she asked again with an incredulous raise of an eyebrow.

"No, not really. I don't know why, he won't talk enough to tell me." The corner of Bruce's mouth quirked into a tiny smile, and he continued to sit there and look at her for another moment before he realized that he was being kind of a terrible host. "Here, um… have a seat," he said, pulling himself off the stool and gesturing towards the rarely-used sofa in the back of the room. He knew it was there as a place to sleep during those long nights in the lab, but since Bruce usually ended up just crashing at the desk, the sofa still looked and felt like it was right out of the furniture store.

Bruce waited for Pepper to get comfortable before he took a seat beside her, leaving a few inches of space between them. He subtly searched for something to do with his hands while he tried to think of how to start this conversation, and eventually settled on fiddling with a stray thread at the end of his sleeve. "So will you tell me what's going on, at least?"

Pepper sank back into the cushions behind her, lips pressed into a bitter smile. _Where to start?_ She wasn't sure how much he knew or what Tony had said before he apparently stopped talking to his boyfriend, so she supposed it was easiest to just start at the beginning. "Well, I found out that I'm pregnant, so I told Tony about it because it's obviously his—we must have conceived before we split up, I guess it took me a while to actually _realize_ it—and he didn't seem to take it too well," she started, even though Bruce probably already knew that part. "Then he came to see me in my office a few days ago because he wanted to talk about it or 'work something out,' but somehow it turned into a conversation about how this is a ' _problem he can't fix in the workshop,'_ and _that_ didn't go well either and now he's not speaking to me. Or you, apparently."

"A problem he can't fix in the workshop," Bruce repeated, and the way he did reminded Pepper too much of how she'd done the same thing with Tony. "That is…" Bruce shook his head slightly before dropping it back against the sofa cushion. "That is so Tony. One hundred percent Tony."

"I know."

"I'm sorry he said that to you." Bruce turned his head to look at her. "I mean, it's not a _problem_ —"

"No, it's not," Pepper said before he could go any further, "at least it shouldn't be. And please, don't be sorry. Look, I didn't—I didn't come down here to complain about Tony or ask for your sympathy, because that would be putting you in the middle and that's the last thing I want to do to you. I just want to know where you stand with this. Because as much as I would like for you to not have to get caught up in this whole… mess…" She sighed, pushing her hair behind her shoulder before she turned to look at the man beside her. "You're with him now, and he's going to be a father. You're involved, and you matter. So please just tell me what you think."

Bruce just sat there in almost-stunned silence for a few moments after she finished. He wasn't used to this. He _definitely_ wasn't used to this, having people come to him for help, ask his thoughts on something that wasn't science or gamma-related. Clearly she was looking for his help here, or maybe just something that would make her feel a little less alone in this. "I think that he's just as scared as you are," he replied quietly, hesitating briefly after to make sure that she didn't take offense to being called scared. Even if she did, though, it didn't matter—she asked what he thought, and it was very obviously true. "Which is fine, I mean, anyone would be scared about this. I would be, I actually kind of am honestly, but… I think you'll be good parents once that baby comes and you figure it out. And I'll help where I can if you want me to, but I think this is something that you both deserve." He offered up a little smile afterwards, hoping it might help to reinforce his words.

"Deserve what?" Pepper asked, her eyes fixed on Bruce's hands as he turned them over each other in his lap. "The baby in general or all the problems she's causing?"

"She?" Bruce smiled a little wider. "It's a girl?"

"Yeah." Pepper couldn't help but mirror Bruce's little smile through the heavy weight of her thoughts. She looked down at the little bump in her middle, feeling Bruce's gaze follow hers. "I found out last week. Knowing that makes it more… real, I guess."

Bruce hummed quietly in agreement, his eyes still trained in a fond gaze at the little curve of Pepper's stomach, even if he wasn't really seeing it. What he was seeing was Tony with a little girl, a daughter with the same winning smile and big, inky brown eyes brimming with curiosity. She had some of Pepper in her too, of course, the same kind of brilliant beauty and confidence that just radiated effortlessly from her being. Bruce wasn't sure that he saw himself anywhere in that picture, or at least not enough to be noticed.

Still, it was a beautiful thing to think about, those two having a daughter—so Bruce wasn't sure he needed to be in that picture just yet.

"You two are going to have an absolutely gorgeous little girl, Pepper," Bruce said softly, finally lifting his gaze to look at her again. "That's what you deserve. That opportunity."

Pepper felt her heart swell at Bruce's words, and had to give herself a minute to regain her voice. In that moment she gave him probably the most genuine smile she'd had in days, and the little quirk at the corner of Bruce's mouth told her that he understood her silent thanks. "So you're okay with it?" she asked, just to be sure.

"Of course I'm okay with it." Wouldn't it be wrong for him _not_ to be? Bruce supposed that maybe it would make sense for him to not be okay with his boyfriend having a baby with his ex-girlfriend, but it was clearly something that had happened before their relationship ever started. It wasn't as if Tony had cheated, but even if he had… well, Pepper was brilliant and powerful and gorgeous, and they had a history, and Bruce still had trouble with seeing himself as anything but ordinary. But he wasn't going to go there, not now. This wasn't the time. "You're my friends. I'm happy for you."

"I think Tony's a bit more than just your _friend,_ Bruce," Pepper pointed out, a teasing smirk curling her lips.

Bruce chuckled. "He is," he replied, "and I really think that maybe you should try talking to him about this again and figure it out, so then maybe my more-than-friend will start talking to me again, too. You agree?" He smiled.

Pepper exhaled a sigh, but the teasing smirk still on her face gave it away as just another mockery. "So typical of you boys, making me do all your dirty work for you," she chastised, reaching out to pat Bruce's shoulder before she pulled herself off the sofa. Bruce watched her walk away for a brief moment before he too pulled himself to his feet, starting to wander back to where he'd left papers in disarray at his desk.

"Bruce?" He looked up when he heard his name, and turned his head to find that Pepper had turned around just before the door. "Thank you."

Bruce absently twirled his pen between his fingers, smiling slightly as he met Pepper's eyes over the distance between them. "You're welcome."


	4. 16 Weeks Part Two

"If you're not going to do the talking, then I guess I'll have to do it for you."

Pepper had made her way down to Tony's workshop some time after she'd left Bruce's lab, and now found herself standing in the middle of blaring music and discarded tools, staring at the grease-stained hem of Tony's shirt since the top half of him was shoved under a car. She didn't particularly enjoy that she'd spent most of her day tracking those two down, but she had to get this whole 'talking about it' thing over with at some point.

"Look, Tony, I know we were both edgy the other day and maybe said some things we didn't mean, but I want to figure this out, okay? I want to work with you on this, so will you please just look at me?"

There was a sharp clang as a metal wrench hit the floor beside where Tony was under the car. So much time had passed since he'd spoken at all, and he wasn't even sure if he knew how to form words anymore. Even he didn't really know why he wasn't speaking to anyone, not even Jarvis, but instead of harping on it and trying to figure out his own screwed up coping methods, he just slid out from under the car and sat up to look at Pepper.

"What do you want me to say, Pep?" he asked, his mouth feeling strange around the words. "That I'm sorry and I was an asshole and it's all better now? That I've thought about it and turned over a new leaf and that I'm ready to be World's Best Dad?"

"Well, 'sorry' would be nice," Pepper muttered, half to herself. She heard Tony give a muffled _humph_ in reply as he pulled himself up and wandered over to his workbench, but she did her best to ignore it. "But no, I want you to…" She sighed, not really sure how to approach it. Usually she didn't have any problem being blunt with Tony, but this—this was different. "I want you to tell me what you're afraid of with this so we can work it out."

Tony paused for a second so brief that Pepper would have missed it if she hadn't been watching the motion of him wiping the grease off his hands with an equally stained towel. "What makes you think I'm afraid of anything?" he replied, tossing the towel aside but still refusing to meet Pepper's eyes.

"You get quiet when you're scared."

Tony clenched his jaw and felt his muscles go tense, but somehow forced himself to relax. He didn't want this to turn out the same way it had a few days prior. "I'm not _scared_ ," he said, being sure to emphasize it, "maybe I'm just worried about how we're going to raise it decently with both of us being so busy all the time. We both have careers, you know. Especially you. What are you gonna do, bring the baby to work?"

"Oh, please." Pepper fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Give me a break. You know I can handle that, so just spill what you're really worried about?"

Tony balked, but made an effort to hide the hesitation by finding a few more tools to wipe down or throw into the box. It probably didn't work, because Pepper of all people knew that Tony _never_ organized his tools, but he decided to make a charade of it anyway while he figured out how or if he even wanted to say what was on his mind. "I'm with Bruce," he said, stupidly, because even if Pepper wasn't as brilliant as she was, she definitely knew that. "I'm not with you. I'm with him."

Pepper quirked an eyebrow. She felt like she knew where this was going, but she wasn't going to push it. "And?"

" _And,_ " Tony said, actually trying for once to keep the mockery out of his voice because this situation really didn't need it, "I'm in love with him. I'm really, really, so _completely_ in love with him. And I was going to tell him that I'm in love with him, pretty soon actually, but then you came along again and suddenly you're _pregnant_ and it's _mine._ " He was already saying too much. This right here, he realized, was exactly why he'd been silent for three days straight, but no matter how hard he was kicking himself for saying it he couldn't stop himself from turning to face Pepper and continuing. "And now I'm remembering that those feelings I had for you never really went away. Not totally. So maybe I'm just a little worried that those feelings are going to end up hurting him."

"Tony." Pepper shook her head slightly, taking a few steps closer. "I know you're with him now. I don't—I'm not going to use this to try and meddle in your relationship. That's not what this is about." She would, however, be lying if she said that she hadn't thought about those feelings either. Still, even after all they'd been through and how much it still hurt, she was set on convincing herself that moving on is what had to happen.

Except that the whole baby thing kind of threw a kink into the plan, and Tony very obviously agreed that it wasn't supposed to happen like this. This confusion, the pain, these seemingly irreconcilable differences weren't how they were supposed to start a family. Their child wasn't supposed to be brought into the world like _this._

"I know that's not what it's about," Tony replied, "but that doesn't mean it's not going to _become_ about that." It was like all those words he'd withheld for days were suddenly all spilling out at once. God, he really needed to stop talking again. "Because all those things, everything we've been through—all those feelings, what we had, that doesn't just _stop_ , Pepper. We broke up. I fell in love with Bruce. I know. But…" He sighed, unable to wipe the hopeless look off his face as he stared back at Pepper. "It doesn't just _stop._ "

Pepper's heart had begun to thump so hard in her chest that she could have sworn she could hear it. The way Tony was looking at her should have made her nervous, and she was, but maybe not as much as she should have been. "Tony…"

"Don't 'Tony' me."

Before Pepper could even begin to say anything else, Tony's mouth was hot against hers and whatever words had been on her mind started to melt away under the pressure. At first, the small part in the back of her brain that could still think wondered if she should pull away, put an end to this obviously wrong thing that was happening—but it just felt like something she'd found herself missing for so long, even wrongfully so, and even if she _wanted_ to stop, she just… couldn't.

Even Tony's mind couldn't catch a break in the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions clouding his judgment. He was too focused on letting his body tell him what to do, feeling every contour of Pepper's lips against his and running his hands over every curve of her hips that he'd memorized thousands of times before. Kissing her felt like home, and even with the man he loved only a few floors away, Tony's arms were so comfortably locked around her that he wasn't sure he'd be able to let go when Pepper was the one to finally break the contact.

For a moment after the kiss had ended, Pepper just stood there in Tony's arms as they both breathed the same air. Her lips stung from the contact, and that in combination with the heat of his body still pressed against hers almost made her feel like she was finally back where she wanted to be. She couldn't be, though. She couldn't be here, couldn't be close to him and kissing him like time hadn't passed or like they were still a couple celebrating their unborn child. She couldn't be here, but mostly she couldn't do this to Bruce.

"I think you should go start talking to your boyfriend again," Pepper said quietly once she'd regained her voice. "Maybe tell him how in love with him you are."

She pulled her hand away from where it had ended up on Tony's chest, and after an ever-so-brief glance into his eyes, forced herself to turn on her heel and walk away.

* * *

Despite how well it had worked in the past, Tony's cars and tools weren't nearly enough of a distraction right now. He'd stood in the same spot for a few minutes after Pepper left before he rolled himself back underneath the car, but he could still smell her in on his clothes and taste her on his lips, and eventually that was just too overbearing for him to stay in that room.

He was sure to avoid any areas of the tower that could possibly be occupied by people on his way back to his bedroom, which in theory seemed like a good idea, but in practice it just gave him more time alone to think of how catastrophically he'd just screwed up. And the worst part wasn't even that he'd actually done it in the spur of the moment—he wished he could say that the kiss had been an impulse decision, but that would be going too easy on himself, taking the quickest escape route. He wished he could say that he hadn't been thinking about being close to her far before she'd even come to him with the news about the baby, but that was also too much of a lie, and _still_ not even the worst of it.

No, the worst part was that he'd leaned in and kissed her after too much time spent thinking about her, all while the image of Bruce's face hung over his mind.

Because this wasn't something Tony did to Pepper or did to himself. This was something he did to Bruce, and that was him going as hard on himself as he possibly could.

Eventually Tony had to face the real Bruce when he finally shuffled into his bedroom, but instead of seeing his boyfriend's warm, careworn eyes, he was greeted by Bruce's back hunched over the computer at the desk in the corner. For a split second, Tony very seriously considered walking back out the door, but that option disappeared when he realized that Bruce was definitely aware of his presence.

"I see you've decided to join the world of the living," Bruce said, turning his head away from his laptop to give Tony a glance and a smile. Tony was almost surprised at Bruce's casual demeanor before he realized that what happened was still just between him and Pepper, and that Bruce had no idea how much Tony had just hurt him.

"Yeah." Tony kicked his shoes off into the corner of the room, a messy, bad habit that he knew Bruce hated—but if acting like his usual disorganized and generally careless self made Bruce think it was all back to normal, Tony was fine doing it. _Make it natural,_ Tony thought, _then he won't suspect anything._ "The whole creature-of-the-night deal isn't great for my complexion."

Bruce swiveled his chair around to fully face Tony, the edge of his mouth still quirked up in amusement. "And since when has that stopped you before?"

After a second of almost uncertain pause, Tony's answer came as a few quick steps forward and the press of his lips to his boyfriend's, and after a brief moment of surprise at the sudden action, Tony was relieved to feel Bruce shift forward and press back into the contact. They broke apart after a minute to get air, and it only took a second of impassioned eye contact for Tony to pull Bruce to his feet and walk them back towards the bed, both of them falling back onto it without hesitation.

Bruce's lips found Tony's neck as quickly as they'd fallen into each other, and he left a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses down the exposed skin before he paused and chuckled softly. Tony made a noise that was about halfway between pleasure and curiosity, so Bruce was forced to stop and answer. "You smell like motor oil," he explained, his lips brushing against Tony's collarbone, right beside the edge of his still-stained shirt.

Tony just hummed indifferently in reply, turning his head to press his nose into Bruce's hair while his arms worked on pulling the man closer and firmer against him. "You smell like tea," he muttered in reply.

"Still better than motor oil." Bruce lifted his head, and after a quick smirk, punctuated his point with a harsh kiss that almost left Tony's lips bruised. Tony's heart fluttered nervously in his chest as he wondered if oil was the _only_ thing Bruce could smell on him, and he hoped hard for a short moment that the other man couldn't smell Pepper's perfume or taste her lips on Tony's until he made himself put that in the back of his mind and enjoy whatever this was about to turn into.

While Tony was still silently working on turning his brain off, Bruce had returned to kissing down the other man's neck, sucking on the skin just hard enough to leave a little mark under his jaw. As he slid his hands up the sides of Tony's shirt to start working on getting it off, he briefly wondered what had prompted this—not that he minded, of course—but Tony had barely spoken to him in several days, and now he was suddenly eager for what was very quickly turning into something like dirty make-up sex.

Which was fairly normal for Tony, but considering the circumstances…

" _Fuck._ "

Bruce decided his curiosity could wait when Tony's hand ended up on the recently very touch-starved hardness in his pants. He stopped for a second to let the pleasure roll through his body, but then Tony squeezed and Bruce's head snapped up to look at his boyfriend as a little whine fell out of him. Tony's eyes were dark with need, and it didn't take much for Bruce to realize that the man was asking him to just _get on_ with it already; so with a muttered acknowledgement and a roll of his hips, Bruce did.

Both of their shirts had ended up scattered on the floor at some point, and due to Tony's impatient touching and moaning, their pants came off soon after. Bruce shivered as the room's cool air washed over his bare skin, but it didn't last after he settled back on top of Tony again, belly-to-belly with their hips fit snug against each other. Tony's hands danced along Bruce's skin, touching every inch of him down to his ass, which Tony took it upon himself to grab and consequently increase the friction between them.

Bruce had managed to grab the lube before Tony decided to pin them together, and after a low groan rumbled in his throat, he returned the favor and ground his hips down against Tony's. "You know, this is going to make it a little hard for me to fuck you," he murmured against Tony's ear, grinning as the words pulled another moan out of the man beneath him, "well… if that's what you want." He slipped a hand between them and wrapped his fingers around Tony's erection, watching him squirm as he pumped it as much as he could under the closeness. "Because I could do this all day."

Tony whined softly, bucking his hips into Bruce's touch. "Please," he almost whimpered, " _please_."

"Please what?" Bruce twisted his hand again, watching Tony's skin flush and chest heave. "You need to be a little more specific, Tony."

" _Please_ just _fuck me_ already, Banner."

Bruce hummed quietly in reply, letting himself enjoy the sight of Tony squirming beneath him for just a little longer before he gave in. "Better," he murmured, quickly preparing the both of them, "I can work with that." He leaned in and pressed his lips to Tony's, kissing him slowly until he deepened it when he rolled his hips and pushed inside.

Tony held his breath against the slow burn of Bruce's first move and hitched his legs up around the other man's waist in the moment in took for pain to turn into pleasure. It had been a while since he'd bottomed, he liked the dominance and control of being the one making the decisions, but this time he was fine where he was—this way, it was easier for him to not think about Pepper, even if it was only because she couldn't do this to him the way Bruce could. It was easier for him to just let Bruce fuck him senseless to get his mind off everything else that had his mind constantly circling the drain nowadays.

Except that it wasn't, because Tony couldn't bear to think of Bruce as just a _distraction._ That just made the whole thing worse; that was _disgusting,_ so much that Tony wanted to kick himself for even thinking about it when he opened his eyes and saw Bruce's face just inches from his own, skin flushed red and twisted in pleasure.

God, he was beautiful. Perfect. Too perfect.

And he felt so goddamn _good._

So Tony just let himself enjoy it for now. He pressed closer to his boyfriend as his back arched off the bed, which Bruce clearly took as a cue to thrust just a little harder and a little faster. His teeth were at Tony's neck, nibbling gently at the skin there while he listened to the mangled moans and whines spilling from Tony's mouth, until he shifted and found Tony's lips with his own again.

As soon as their lips met, Tony grabbed a fistful of Bruce's hair to anchor him in place. He was determined to feel every part of Bruce's body while they rode this out; every twitch of his muscles, tremor under his skin, thrust of his hips. He could already feel himself getting closer to the edge, and he sucked hard on Bruce's bottom lip when the final thrust finally got him there.

 _I love you._

The pressure snapped, and Tony's toes curled as that ever-needed wave of pleasure came crashing over him.

 _I love you so fucking much._

He didn't even have to open his eyes to know when Bruce finally reached his peak; he could just feel it, hear it in those familiar groans and cries before the other man slumped on top of him. They both stayed where they were for a few minutes, gulping down air like they were drowning, until Bruce rolled over and fell onto the bed beside Tony.

"That will never not be amazing," Bruce said after another several minutes, his voice a quiet, raspy chuckle. His head turned to the side to kiss Tony's bare shoulder, and he could feel Tony's pathetic attempt at a nod through the haze of aftershocks.

"Uh huh," Tony managed to reply. His hand traced lazy patterns over Bruce's side while his mind began to try and work again, and his eyes opened to the sight of the ceiling directly above him when the gears finally started to turn. "I talked to Pepper again today."

 _That's what he wants to talk about right now?_ Bruce forced his eyes open, but managed to keep himself from cocking an eyebrow at Tony's odd choice of post-sex conversation. He'd let the man talk, though. Clearly it was weighing on his mind. "Oh?" Bruce said, stretching his arm over Tony's stomach. "And how did that go?"

"Uh… better." Tony paused, reevaluating his word choice. "I think."

"Well, that's good." Bruce's gaze flicked back up to Tony, and his lips curled into a little smile. "I'm glad you two are talking again."

"Yeah." Tony tilted his head to meet Bruce's eyes, then let his gaze wander down along their still-entwined bodies pressed flush against each other. "Wanna go another round?"

Bruce barely thought about it before he nodded eagerly, and the rest of his reply consisted of a messy, needy kiss while he pulled Tony on top of _him_ this time.


	5. 20 Weeks

"We should really get some breakfast, Tony."

The end of Bruce's sentence was met with a low hum prompted by Tony's lips at his throat. He tightened his arm around Tony's bare back and very seriously considered giving up on his conquest for food, but then his stomach grumbled at him again and he squirmed under the weight of his boyfriend's body on top of him.

"Why?" Tony mumbled against Bruce's skin, "I've already had my most important meal of the day— _ow._ " He swatted Bruce's hand away when the other man pinched his shoulder, and retaliated with a childish nip to Bruce's neck.

" _Because,_ " Bruce began, rolling over to press Tony's back against the rumpled sheets, "we've literally spend the entire week either working or having sex. Or both at the same time. And despite the fact that this is the most sexually satisfied I've been in twenty years, a man needs to eat."

Tony sighed as Bruce pushed him into the bed, his eyes roaming from Bruce's bedraggled hair down to the lazy smile that curled his lips. His insides danced at the triumph that came from Bruce's blunt statement about his _satisfaction,_ and he couldn't deny that he was just about on the same level.

At the same time, Tony didn't want to ruin the utter bliss he was feeling by thinking about how he'd mostly been using their ridiculous amount of sex to distract himself from Pepper. Not that he wasn't enjoying every moment he'd spent with Bruce that week—he was, _immensely_ —but that tidbit of information was still constantly scratching at the back of his mind.

"Fine," Tony finally drawled in reply, leaning in to kiss Bruce one more time before he forced himself to roll out of the bed. He found his boxers laying a few feet away on the floor and pulled them on before he turned to look back at his boyfriend. "Let's eat, then."

Bruce looked over his shoulder after he pulled his shirt on, and scoffed amusedly at Tony's state of undress. "You do remember that Steve and Nat are bunking over here until their next mission, right?"

"Yeah, and? It's my house. They're lucky I even put my underwear back on."

"Mhmm, and last time I checked, this tower had a big A on the front of it, and you said that 'this is anyone's home whenever they need it to be.'" Bruce picked up Tony's shirt and tossed it over at him. " _Your house,_ technically, is in Malibu. Have a little decency for the group home, Tony."

"Maybe we should go to Malibu, then," Tony said, giving up his side of the fight and pulling his clothes on. "Then we can walk around naked without the threat of _indecency."_ He ambled towards the door and held his hand out for Bruce.

Bruce chuckled as he finished fastening the last few buttons on his shirt, taking Tony's hand as soon as he was at least somewhat presentable. He almost made a comment about how it would be silly for them to run away to Malibu _now,_ when Tony was about to be a new father in a few short months, but he stopped himself when he realized that if Tony hadn't said even a word about that in a week then it probably wasn't something he wanted to talk about. "I'll give it some thought," he said after another second, twining their fingers as they made their way down to the kitchen.

When they reached the kitchen, Tony headed straight for the coffee pot after throwing a brief 'hi' in Steve and Natasha's direction. The two of them were seated opposite each other at the table, papers scattered all in front of them even though they appeared to be taking a break from it all. "So where are they shipping you off to this time?" he asked, turning around while the pot began to brew.

Natasha looked up at the engineer with a smug smile. "That's—"

"Classified. Yeah, kinda figured that. Jarvis, where are they off to?"

"SHIELD thought you might try that," Steve cut in, the expression on his face almost giving Natasha a run for her money. "The text on these pages is encrypted with some kind of code that makes it impossible for even the most high-tech of your AIs to read. Nice try, Stark."

"The fuck? Who even came up with that?" Tony scoffed after a confirmation from Jarvis. "Why didn't _I_ come up with that? That's a moneymaker right there."

"Because you don't have enough of that already," Bruce teased, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge before wandering over to lean against the counter beside Tony. "When are they sending you out?" he asked, looking towards the two seated at the table.

"Next Tuesday," Natasha replied, "but I think the better question is where have you two _been_ for the past five days?"

"Working." The reply came simultaneously from the both of them, and Bruce attempted to hide his smile behind a sip of water.

"I think we all know what that really means." The comment was accompanied by the click of heels that could only belong to one person, and heads turned to find Pepper walking into the room, dressed and clearly on her way to work. She cast a smile at the occupants of the room, and once her gaze found Tony she may have let it linger for a moment too long before she blinked. "Mind if I get some of that coffee you're protecting?"

Tony also stared back at her a little too long, almost feeling some kind of exhilaration in the stolen moment until he remembered that there were other people in the room. "Yeah, go ahead," he replied, ignoring how painfully awkward the interaction must have looked to the others. He stepped aside to let Pepper reach the coffee pot, ending up pressed against Bruce's side in the process. For the next minute or so, the only sounds in the room were the rustling of papers and the clink of a spoon in a mug as Pepper stirred her coffee until she caught a smile on Steve's face in the corner of her eye, and she glanced at him questioningly.

"I didn't know you were pregnant," Steve said, his smile widening slightly until he noticed Pepper's hesitation and felt the sudden urge to backpedal. "I mean, unless you're—I didn't mean to assume, I just noticed that—"

"Just quit while you're ahead, Cap," Natasha muttered, masking her amusement behind the packet of papers she was flipping through.

"No, no, it's fine," Pepper replied after the initial surprise had worn off, and she laughed quietly, almost nervously. "I guess it's more noticeable than I thought it was," she explained, "baby's due in November."

"Oh." The warm smile returned to Steve's face. "Congratulations, then. Who's the lucky guy?"

This time, Pepper's hesitation had less to do with being caught off guard and more do with if she was even comfortable answering. If Tony hadn't been there, she probably would have just said it—but he was there, right beside her, and they were both still clearly too conflicted about what had happened the last time they say each other to be taking questions about their imminent parenthood. So instead she just glanced at him for long enough that Steve would get the idea, and looked away a split second after Tony met her eyes. "I should get to work," she said, pausing to take a sip of her coffee. "It was nice to see you two again." She smiled at Steve and Natasha one last time before she made her way out of the kitchen, exhaling a slightly shaky sigh once she was out of earshot.

"Was it something I said?" Steve asked after a beat of silence, brow furrowed.

"No," Tony said quickly, trying to end that topic of conversation as soon as possible, "our kid's just a bit of a touchy topic right now." Before anyone could comment on his use of the word _our,_ he gulped down the last bit of his coffee and set the mug in the sink. "Anyway, I've gotta get down to the shop. I don't trust Dum-E to check on my stuff without setting it on fire." He looked towards Bruce when he felt the man's hand on his back, and paused. "Wanna do lunch or something today?"

"I'd like to, but I have plans, actually." Bruce smiled apologetically. "With Pepper."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "Since when do you and Pep go out on lunch dates?"

"Since we became friends a long time ago. You jealous?" Bruce teased, but dropped it as soon as Tony cracked a forced smile. "How about dinner, then? I should be done in the lab by six at the latest."

"Okay. Sure. Dinner it is." Tony took a second to lean in and kiss his boyfriend, keeping the contact short yet sweet until he pulled back to mumble a quiet "see you tonight" against his lips before all but fleeing the room.

Tony had slithered away so quickly that Bruce didn't bother with saying goodbye, and instead just stifled a sigh and turned back to the two still at the table. He took in the pensive expressions on both their faces, and rather than trying to explain, just shrugged and hoped he looked like he was just as confused as they were.

* * *

"You have to understand that we have a number of blacklisted stockholders. It's a short list, but your close relations to Hammer Industries puts you near the top. My hands are tied."

There was something oddly mesmerizing about watching Pepper Potts effortlessly shut someone down, Bruce thought as he stood quietly in the doorway of her office. She'd told him to meet her at one o'clock for lunch, and it was now nearing one-fifteen, but she was obviously a little tied up and Bruce didn't mind watching, anyway.

"Yes, I'm the CEO of the company, and no, that doesn't mean I'm going to break protocol for you. There's nothing that I can or will do for you unless you agree to improve your business practice, so until then, have a lovely day." Pepper hung up the phone and sighed exasperatedly, pushing a hand through her hair before she leaned back in her chair and looked towards Bruce. "Sorry. I really didn't think that was going to take so long."

"That's fine." Bruce smiled. "It's an honor to watch the master work."

"You flatter me. Truly," Pepper teased in return, leaving her desk as it was when she got up just because she knew organizing it would take another ten minutes, and Bruce had been standing there long enough already. "Did you have any ideas for lunch?" she asked, grabbing her jacket before she gestured for Bruce to follow her out the door.

"Nothing in particular," Bruce replied, content to let Pepper lead the way to the elevator. "I figured I might let you pick, in case you were, you know… craving anything specific." He smirked, watching the floor numbers decrease as they sank towards the bottom.

Pepper blinked, a little smile curling her lips when she noticed the smug smirk on Bruce's face. "Pregnancy jokes, very funny," she replied, the words sarcastic but still vaguely amused. "There's a bunch of cafes down the street, how about we take a walk down there and I'll tell you when the hormones flare up?"

"Sounds like a plan to me." As soon as they'd made it outside, Bruce offered her his arm, and she linked their elbows without hesitation. It was easy, casual, like the rest of their friendship—even if Bruce was still somewhat surprised that she actually trusted him. (According to Tony, earning Pepper Potts' trust was not an easy task, and not many people had conquered it. He had to admit that at times he was even a little giddy that she'd chosen him to be let into that small circle, now more than ever.)

"So how's work?" Bruce asked as they walked. That was a question he'd always kind of hated; it just felt like surface talk, impersonal, but he supposed with Pepper it didn't really matter. "That phone call sounded a little rough."

"I suppose it was," Pepper replied indifferently. Her eyes scanned the shops and cafes that lined the city streets, and eventually she gestured towards one that seemed decent. Bruce nodded, so they made their way into the door and towards a table. "It's nothing I haven't dealt with plenty of times, though. We generally try to cut ties with any person or company that's tried to kill Tony or myself," she explained with a wry smile.

"Well, that seems like a good way to practice business," Bruce replied, laughing a little bit at Pepper's blunt explanation. The conversation paused so they could order their food, and it was only a few minutes until it was ready and they were able to get comfortable.

"So," Pepper started after she'd swallowed a bite of her sandwich, "if I ask you about work, will the ridiculous surface talk be over with so you can say what's really on your mind?" She looked up at Bruce across the table, a knowing smile on her lips.

"Oh, Pepper," Bruce chastised teasingly, "you know the details of my experiments and test results don't make for interesting conversation."

"That is a true statement. Spill it, Doctor."

Bruce chuckled quietly at her reply before he looked down into his coffee. He lifted the cup to his lips to take a sip, trying to figure out how he wanted to word this. "About this morning," he started, and he could see Pepper visibly stiffen a little bit. "What was that?"

"What about it?" Pepper asked indifferently. "Was it weird?" She was never really one to play dumb unless the situation called for it, and when it did, Pepper was _very_ good at it. It was an acquired skill after too many years in the dog-eat-dog world of business that she lived in every day.

"A little bit." Bruce's lips quirked into a slightly nervous smile. "I was just—Tony told me that you two were talking again, or at least trying to. This morning just seemed a bit… uncomfortable?" He looked back down after he finished speaking. "I'm not trying to be intrusive, I just… want to be sure that everything is alright."

Pepper exhaled a quiet sigh from her nose. She had to do her best to appear as calm as she could manage right now, because as far as she knew (and hoped), Tony hadn't said anything to Bruce about what happened in the workshop, and any indication of the awkwardness that Bruce had clearly seen that morning might give it away. "Everything's okay," she replied, leaning back in her chair, "or at least as okay as it can be for now. We're still working it out. It's taking a little longer than I'd like, honestly."

"I think that's to be expected," Bruce said. He'd relaxed a bit once she replied, but he was still just the tiniest bit wary of her answer. "This isn't exactly the easiest—or most normal—situation to have to deal with."

"Don't need to tell me twice," Pepper muttered, but quickly composed herself after the rather cynical tone of her comment. "I know. I just wish we'd made a little more progress by now, that's all. I mean, I'm already more than halfway through this pregnancy. I actually have my 24-week ultrasound coming up, and I'd kind of like him to be there, I think it's something he should see, but…" She shrugged slightly and shook her head, looking back down at the table. "I just don't know if he'd be ready to do that yet. I don't want to push him." She absently slid her palm over her belly, feeling her daughter start to kick just as she always did when her mother felt the beginnings of any kind of stress. Pepper didn't necessarily think she was stressed, but clearly her baby knew better.

"You're still going to ask him, though?" Bruce questioned, raising an eyebrow. Pepper wasn't one to back down from any kind of challenge, especially not one presented by Tony.

"Of course I'm going to ask him," Pepper replied, as if it should have been obvious (in hindsight, Bruce supposed it was). "I'm just about ninety-eight percent sure of what his answer will be."

"There's still a whole two percent there. Don't get too far ahead of yourself." Bruce smiled. "I'll tell you what, though. If you ask him and he says no, just tell me and… I'll go with you," he said casually. "I mean, if—if you're comfortable with that, of course." His little smile had faded when he stumbled over his words, but he offered it up again when he noticed the surprise drawn across Pepper's expression. He certainly hoped he hadn't overstepped.

Pepper didn't know what to say. Part of her was shocked that Bruce had even offered in the first place, and the other part was stuck looking for a way to express her gratitude. It wasn't as if Bruce had any kind of _conventional_ attachment to the child—honestly, if this was a normal situation with normal people, and if Bruce wasn't the kind and seemingly passive man that he was, Pepper could see how he could hate everything about this. But he didn't, for whatever reason, and he'd actually just offered to go see her unborn baby with her when it was likely that the kid's _actual father_ wouldn't.

She still hadn't decided which part of her was right. Probably the latter.

"You would do that?" she asked, and Bruce nodded like it was just an everyday kind of favor. "Thank you, Bruce."

"Anything you need," Bruce said warmly just after he'd finished the last of his meal. "24 weeks is a pretty big deal, I mean, you should have someone there with you." Really, he just hated having to watch her go through this alone. He couldn't possibly imagine how hard it must have been when she found out, _alone,_ or when she had to go through so many weeks of hiding it, _alone,_ until she found the courage to tell someone. Bruce knew all too well about being alone during the hardest things in life, and wanted to help her as much as he could without overstepping his boundaries (meaning with both her _and_ Tony).

Instead of saying anything further about it, because it seemed a little excessive to thank him multiple times, Pepper just smiled gratefully in return. Had she been sitting closer, she almost would have considered taking his hand, but then she realized that she'd been staring at him for probably a moment too long and forced herself to blink.

"You know, Doctor," Pepper started after she noticed that Bruce caught her looking, and she swept her slight embarrassment under the rug for now. "Just because the specifics of your test results and experiments don't make for interesting conversation doesn't mean the project itself doesn't. Tell me about what's keeping you holed up in that lab for so long."

She watched a beaming smile spread across Bruce's face, and she was more than glad to put the spotlight back on him for now. He definitely deserved it.


	6. 24 Weeks Part One

He'd said no.

Well, he hadn't exactly said _no,_ not specifically. He'd just done his typical Tony thing and danced around the question, rambled for a few minutes about his plans and events that week to sound like he was booked, then ended the conversation with _"I'll see if I can make it."_

In the _Starkian_ dialect, that meant no.

As disappointing as it was that Tony seemed so hesitant to accept that he was going to father a child, Pepper couldn't say she hadn't been expecting that response. It was a lot to process, and she understood that all too well. Bruce had been right, after all—today was kind of a big deal, and maybe Tony just wasn't ready yet.

 _Quite frankly, neither am I._

Pepper sighed. She wanted to be mad at Tony, she really did. His reactions seemed an awful lot like not wanting to take responsibility and be an _adult_ about this (which was basically his M.O. anyway), or like he was trying to take the easy way out. It felt like he was being a typical, early twenty-something man who'd knocked up his girlfriend and then backed out by saying _"I'm not ready."_

She really wanted to be mad at him for that. She wanted to be _furious_ about it, to march right back to his workshop and demand that he own up to what he did and start being a damn part of this like he was supposed to be. She wanted to be so fucking _pissed_ that he'd come running back with his tail between his legs.

And honestly, she also wanted to be mad at him because there was a part of her recently that still felt like she loved him, and it was _infuriating_ that he wasn't around when she really needed him to be. She was having his damn _baby,_ for god's sake. However, Bruce was still in the picture, and it would be incredibly selfish of her to put him in that kind of position.

God, this was so fucking complicated.

So no, she couldn't be mad at Tony. She couldn't be mad at him since it would be terrible for her to compromise his relationship with the man he now loved, and on top of that, Pepper knew that if their situations were reversed, she'd probably do what Tony was doing and try to avoid it. She wasn't ready for a baby, either. However, she had the unfortunate circumstance of having that baby growing inside of her, so she kind of _had_ to face it.

"Where do you think you're going all alone?" Pepper had just been about to unlock her car when she heard another voice echo across the garage. She looked over her shoulder, finding Bruce standing by one of the cars with a little smile on his face. "I know he's not coming, Pepper," he continued, "I just saw him in the lab. Come on, we'll take my car."

Pepper slipped her keys back into her bag and walked towards Bruce. She was almost surprised that he actually remembered, or still even wanted to go at all. "This is your car? I was wondering whose it was, I never see anyone drive it," she teased lightly, smiling gratefully at him to silently thank him for his generosity.

"Yeah, well… I don't drive much," Bruce replied with a little chuckle, opening the passenger door for her before he walked over to slide into the driver's seat. "My big green roommate doesn't really care for cars. Or large cities… or being in cars in large cities, so I usually try to walk if I can. Tony insisted on me having a car, though. I couldn't really say no, even though I tried." He looked over at Pepper just before he began to pull out of the garage. He could tell that she was avoiding the obvious topic of conversation, and Bruce didn't want to push it—he didn't know the intimate details of how she felt about this, nor did he need to. "You'll have to give me some directions, though. I'm not sure where your doctor's office is."

"It's only a few blocks away, so not too far," Pepper replied, gesturing for him to turn a corner. "Thanks again for doing this, Bruce."

"No need to thank me, I'm happy to do it." Bruce looked over at her and smiled while they were stopped at a light. Maybe it was selfish of him, but this was probably the closest Bruce would ever get to the experience of starting a family. Pepper was just a friend, though, and he was only doing this out of the goodness of his heart. He wouldn't have the ultimate endgame of holding a baby of his own in his arms and a loving spouse to raise it with, but it was nice to imagine it just for a moment.

It wasn't much longer until they reached the doctor's office, and after Bruce had asked yet again if she was still okay with him being there and Pepper had assured him again that _yes, Bruce, it's just a routine ultrasound, it's fine,_ they were taken back to a room. They were left alone for a few minutes after a nurse took Pepper's vitals, and Bruce spent a moment of that time watching Pepper's body language as she fidgeted and wrung her hands in her lap. It was an odd look on her—Bruce was used to seeing her standing tall, confident, unwavering. Honestly, right now she seemed like a completely different person, and Bruce felt a pang of sympathy for how much this pregnancy was changing her.

Pepper seemed to have zoned out, so Bruce decided to break the somewhat heavy silence. "You doing okay?" he asked, softly and calmly enough that he wouldn't startle her.

Regardless of Bruce's effort, though, Pepper still flinched a little bit when she was pulled out of her thoughts. She offered Bruce a small smile once she'd blinked out of her trance. "Yeah," she replied, not exactly meeting his eyes, "yeah, I'm alright. Just a little nervous, that's all," she admitted. Honesty was probably the best option here; after all, Bruce wouldn't have said anything if he hadn't noticed that she was a little off.

That's as much as she was going to tell him, though. The statement had been honest, but not completely informational—she wasn't sure if she could put into words how terrifying it was for her to get another glimpse at her child (and consequently, motherhood), or if she could verbally admit how much it hurt that Tony wasn't here to experience it with her. Even harder to admit, however, was the fact that somehow having Bruce there with her made it feel like that wound had closed, and when he reached out to touch her hand in comfort, Pepper wasn't sure if the flutter in her stomach was her baby or those ridiculous butterflies she hadn't felt since high school.

Pepper wouldn't have gotten a chance to say any of that anyway before they were joined by her doctor, and she had to look away from Bruce's warm, chocolatey gaze to greet the woman.

"Nice to see you again, Pepper," the doctor said, flipping through a few pages of the chart in her hands before she looked up to smile at the two in the room. "I see you brought a guest," she pointed out, looking over at Bruce.

"Oh, yeah, hi." Bruce pulled himself out of his chair to hold out his hand in greeting. "Dr. Banner," he said, but he quickly realized that this situation didn't really call for his formal title. "Or, uh, Bruce. Just Bruce. Nice to meet you."

"Dr. Montgomery," the woman replied, stifling a quiet chuckle at how Bruce stumbled over his words. "I've seen some of your work, Dr. Banner. It's quite impressive." She paused for a moment, glancing between Bruce and Pepper. "You must be the baby's father?"

" _No_." Pepper and Bruce said the word simultaneously, Bruce's tone almost panicked while Pepper's seemed more lonesome. "No, I mean, I'm just—just a friend," Bruce explained, a tentative smile on his face. "Here for moral support," he added, reaching over to pat Pepper's hand.

"Okay. My apologies for assuming," the doctor said, and the two of them dismissed the confusion with a quick " _it's fine"_ before the woman turned back towards Pepper with an encouraging smile. "Let's get started then." She stepped towards where Pepper was sitting on the examination table, gesturing for her to get comfortable before she began to feel around Pepper's belly. "How have you been feeling?"

"The same." Pepper cracked what looked like a rather forced smile, and the doctor looked up to meet her eyes.

"So the pain hasn't gotten any worse?" she asked, "just stayed consistent?"

"It hasn't gotten any worse, fortunately," Pepper replied. Her gaze flicked towards Bruce, who was clearly masking his concern under his typical expression of practiced calm.

"Well, that's a good sign. As much as we'd both like for it to have gotten better, the fact that it hasn't gotten worse is promising considering how difficult this pregnancy has been for you." The doctor smiled warmly again before she stepped away to prepare the ultrasound. "Ready to take a look?"

"Sure." Pepper's tone was tentative, as were her hands as she lifted her shirt away from her stomach. Bruce found himself staring for a moment, struck by how beautiful the sight of her was—he'd seen a fair share of pregnant women during his years that he worked as a traveling doctor, but Pepper was… different. Strikingly gorgeous. He couldn't quite pinpoint why, maybe it was the way in which he knew her, but he was pulled out of his trance when he looked up to meet Pepper's eyes and was struck by the realization that he was seeing her in what was probably one of her most vulnerable states.

Bruce also noticed that Pepper had extended her hand towards him, and he took that as a cue to take a few quiet steps forward and wrap his hand around hers. He squeezed her fingers gently and gave her a smile that more or less expressed the words _"I'm here for you"_ before they were interrupted by the doctor's voice again.

"There she is," the doctor pointed out, turning the monitor so it faced the two of them a little more. "She's definitely healthy, I don't see anything that's out of the ordinary. Heartbeat is strong," she continued, but both Pepper and Bruce seemed far too preoccupied with staring at the greyscale image of the baby on the screen to really be listening too hard.

For his part, at least, Bruce definitely couldn't look away. He'd seen plenty of ultrasounds, but being on the other side of the display completely changed the experience—and it wasn't as if he even had any claim to the tiny child he was staring at. Even so, that didn't stop his heart from swelling with a kind of warmth he didn't know he could feel anymore. Pepper's daughter was beautiful, and Bruce was endlessly grateful that she'd let him experience this with her.

He couldn't believe Tony was missing this.

If Pepper wasn't getting anywhere in helping Tony to realize what an amazing experience he was giving up, then Bruce was going to have to take care of that himself.

"So she's okay?" Bruce was startled out of his trance by Pepper's voice, and once he came back to himself he realized that she'd been holding onto his hand so tight that he could barely move his fingers.

"Well, she is a bit on the small side, but it's nothing to worry about. Her vitals look good, and I don't see anything that's a cause for concern," the doctor answered, moving the probe around to get a few different angles on the baby while she looked, "so yes, it's safe to say that she's okay. She's wonderful, really." She looked back at Pepper, smiling genuinely and encouragingly. "Did you have any other questions or concerns?"

Pepper just stared at the monitor for another moment, almost purposefully stalling her response just so she could watch her daughter for just a little bit longer. "No," she finally said, forcing her gaze back to the doctor, "thank you."

"Alright, looks like we're done here then. I'd like to see you again in six weeks, but if you need anything, don't hesitate to call before then." The doctor gathered a few things, but before she left, she handed Pepper a small print-out of the image from her ultrasound. "Thought you might like to have that," she smiled, "I'll see you soon."

Pepper and Bruce both said a quiet goodbye as the woman left the room, and Pepper sighed a little bit as she sat back up properly. She looked down at the photo she held in her hands and felt her heart tighten again, and she stayed where she was in the room just because she didn't know if she was quite ready to go back into the world again just yet.

"So what's this 'difficult pregnancy' your doctor is going on about?" Until she heard Bruce ask that question, and Pepper realized that she was going to have to face reality again a lot sooner than she would have liked.

(Honestly, Bruce had considered not asking the question at all, but the phrase had been weighing on his mind since it was spoken. He just hoped he wasn't pushing the boundaries too far.)

Pepper, on the other hand, didn't know how she wanted to answer that question, or if she even wanted to at all. She knew Bruce well enough to trust that he wouldn't go running back to Tony and tell him everything she said (that is, if Tony even _cared_ ), but she also felt too vulnerable right now as it was and talking about this probably wouldn't do much to make it better.

"Well…" Regardless of her own insecurities, Pepper decided to just tell him anyway. She didn't want him to feel like she was intentionally shutting him out, not after everything he'd already done for her. Maybe getting it off her chest would do her some good. "It's been a bit of a bumpy road."

"I think that might be the understatement of the year," Bruce murmured dryly. He saw Pepper crack a tiny smile, but the rest of her expression told him that wasn't exactly what she meant.

"Very true," Pepper agreed, "but since Dr. Montgomery clearly doesn't know about our awkward little triangle situation, that's not what she meant." She looked away then, but before she did she caught the concern that flashed through Bruce's eyes. From the corner of her eye she could see him step closer, hip leant against the table she was still sitting on while his arms folded over his chest. "I'm sure part of Tony's rant to you about this was how we thought I couldn't have kids, right?" She looked up to see Bruce tilt his head just slightly, but enough for her to know that he knew. Of course Tony had mentioned _that_. "It's not that I _can't_ , it's that it's just _hard_ for me to. My body doesn't exactly… adapt well to a change like this, so yes, it's been difficult to say the least. Honestly, I thought this was just going to end in another miscarriage, that's why—um, that's why I waited so long to tell Tony."

Bruce's brow furrowed, but he still did his best to hide the pain he felt for her. "Another?"

"It would have been my third." A sad smile crossed Pepper's lips as she looked up at Bruce. "Tony doesn't know. I don't think he'll ever know, although… I don't know, maybe I should have told him. Then maybe he'd actually appreciate that I'm _finally_ having this perfectly healthy, _amazing_ little girl instead of just… throwing it away." She tore her gaze away again and instead looked down at herself, sliding both hands over her stomach. "Or maybe he wouldn't. I've known the man for the better part of fifteen years and I still can't figure him out."

Bruce wasn't sure where to look or what to say. He was actually a little taken aback that she had suddenly shared so many intimate details with him with so little hesitation—though for all Bruce knew, she could have been a nervous talker and spilled things she hadn't meant to. Still, that didn't mean he felt any less sympathy, and he was still stuck trying to find the right words. "Why didn't you tell anyone?" he finally asked, his voice quiet and as kind as he could manage. "About… anything?"

"Who was I supposed to tell?" Pepper questioned in reply, the words barely above a murmur.

"Me." Bruce shuffled a little closer to her, arms falling away from where he'd had them wrapped around himself. "You could have told _me,_ Pepper." In an uncharacteristic show of boldness, he didn't even hesitate to reach over and place a hand over one of hers. He wrapped his hand around hers, and for a second he could have sworn that he felt the baby kick just underneath where his fingers brushed against her stomach. "I told you that I'm here for you."

"Bruce…" Pepper glanced up at his eyes before lowering her gaze back to where Bruce's hand was curled around hers against her belly. She was suddenly regretting saying so much—not because she didn't trust Bruce to keep it quiet, but because she probably trusted him _too much._ It wasn't supposed to be like this. She wasn't supposed to be sitting here like this, ever so slightly leaning into his warmth beside her and silently hoping that his hand would never leave hers; she wasn't supposed to be feeling those goddamn _butterflies_ again, not for the man that the father of her child loved.

She wasn't supposed to be thinking those things or feeling those things, but she was regardless, no matter how hard she tried not to. It felt wrong, but it also didn't, because he was kind and gentle and handsome and quite literally _there_ for her when she absolutely needed it. Somehow it seemed like he was what she'd _always_ needed.

"What?" Bruce's voice interrupted Pepper's thoughts. Pepper just shook her head and shrugged, lifting her free hand to brush it through her hair.

"Nothing, it's just…" After how much she'd spilled just moments ago, Pepper wasn't sure if she should even continue talking at that point. "It's just… all this. You're with Tony, and I'm pregnant, and Tony's being _Tony_ about it, and now I'm here and you're here with me, and you're…"

"I'm…?" Bruce raised an eyebrow. He thought he knew where she was going with that statement, and he really couldn't pinpoint if how he felt about it was good or bad.

"You're you." Pepper looked up at him again, and in what was probably a momentary lapse of judgment, leaned in just close enough for their lips to touch. Her mind finally stopped spinning for a minute, the soft warmth of his lips against hers enough to allow her to relax and maybe even forget about the screwed up whirlwind of a life she had right now. Bruce was warm and sturdy and pretty damn near perfect, and kissing him somehow just felt _right_ —until Pepper noticed that he wasn't really moving, and she suddenly realized the implications of what she'd just done.

"Oh my god," Pepper muttered immediately after she'd pulled back, "oh my god, Bruce, I'm—"

She didn't get a chance to finish the sentence before her lips were otherwise occupied, and Bruce's move to kiss her again very much surprised both of them. He couldn't really pinpoint what exactly motivated him to do it, but for some reason it just felt so _good,_ like the tension had finally melted away and they were able to uncover what they both clearly felt was there _._ He didn't edge it into anything more than the smooth slide of lips and tongue that it had turned into, and he found himself marveling at just how delicate she felt in his arms, how different she felt from Tony.

 _Oh god, Tony._

As soon as his partner's name crossed his mind, Bruce had to break away, breath coming quick and heavy from the adrenaline of the moment before. As much as he'd gotten caught up in the way Pepper felt pressed against him, as intensely as he was feeling whatever these things were for her, he couldn't do this to Tony. He loved the man _too damn much_ to do something like this to him, despite what he felt for the woman still sitting in front of him.

Honestly, he didn't know what he felt anymore. Bruce had never been good at feelings, anyway.

"I think we should start heading home," Bruce said quietly, clearing his throat once he got his voice back.

"Yeah." Pepper swallowed thickly, and made a move to slide off the table and back onto her feet. "Yeah, I agree." She could only guess as to what made Bruce pull away and change his attitude so quickly, but she had a pretty good idea. Tony had told her that he was in love with Bruce after all, and given their interactions that she'd witnessed, she could only assume that Bruce probably felt the same.

The two of them were nearly silent as they slipped out of the room, checked out, and made their way back into the parking lot. Bruce still stayed close to her side so things didn't seem _too_ awkward, but his efforts went down the drain when he spotted the car parked next to his own.

The hot rod red car sloppily parked in the lot made Bruce's admittedly quite nice vehicle pale in comparison. A car that ostentatious and luxurious could only belong to one person, and that was confirmed by the license plate that neatly spelled out _STARK 11._ What surprised him more than just the presence of the car was the plate's namesake leaning casually against the back end, hands in his pockets and dark sunglasses shielding his eyes.

"Hey." Tony looked over when he heard the other two approaching. He was a little surprised to see Bruce there, but decided that he would figure that out later as he looked at Pepper over the rim of his sunglasses. "Let me drive you home?"


	7. 24 Weeks Part Two

They all probably looked like fools, standing there in the middle of the parking lot looking between each other like there had been some kind of terrible mix up. Tony's eyes had been flicking consistently between Bruce and Pepper, brows raised expectantly while he waited for some kind of answer or explanation.

Bruce didn't really want to give him one, though. He didn't know what he would have said if he tried.

"Sure." Pepper finally broke the silence. It was heavy and uncomfortable, but most of all she didn't like the calculating look on Tony's face that she knew all too well. She was sure he'd be questioning Bruce about this later, so she figured she'd save Bruce the pain right now. "Let's go. Um…" She shifted to look at Bruce still beside her, and offered him a little, grateful smile. "Thank you for coming with me. And… everything."

"Of course." Bruce returned the smile as easily as he could before he gestured her towards Tony. "I guess I'll see you both back home?" He turned his gaze onto Tony, but before the other man replied he took a quick step forward and pressed his lips to Bruce's cheek. He lingered there for a moment, and Bruce almost turned his head so he could catch Tony's lips in his own until he felt Tony whisper " _I'll talk to you about this later"_ against his ear.

Bruce just squeezed Tony's shoulder, savoring the brief moment of closeness until Tony pulled back and Bruce stepped back towards his car, trying not to think too hard about what part of the situation " _this"_ was referring to.

They parted ways then, each of them feeling some level of awkward as they slid into their respective vehicles. Once Pepper was situated in the passenger seat and was about as comfortable as she was going to be, she looked over at Tony, studying his movements as he put the car in drive. "Nice of you to show up _after_ the appointment," she commented dryly, looking back out the windshield. Maybe a bitter remark wasn't the best way to start the conversation, but there wasn't much else that came to mind.

"Told you I was busy," Tony replied. His eyes were staring long down the road before them, and his fingers were stiff as he gripped the wheel with both hands. He was nowhere near his usual reckless driving habits, and Pepper could read his body language far too well to fall for whatever façade he was trying to put on.

"What changed your mind?" Pepper knew he was fibbing, and she wasn't having any of it.

Tony's jaw flexed, and that was the surefire sign that he knew he was caught. The fact of the matter though was that his mind hadn't even needed to be _changed—_ he'd been thinking about this all day, so the truth was that he'd finally worked up the confidence to get over himself and show up and at least _try_ to make things right. "I realized that I've been an asshole about all of this," he finally responded, and when he had the car fully stopped at a light he stole a glance at Pepper in the seat beside him. He met her eyes for barely a second before his gaze traveled elsewhere, lingering on her stomach for a moment until he looked back at the road. "And during all of my assholery, I also realized that I'm missing… everything. And I guess I don't want to miss it anymore."

"How sentimental." Pepper hadn't meant for the comment to sound so snide, but she was still on the fence and slightly aloof. It was odd to see Tony do a complete one-eighty with how he felt, and on top of that it just seemed to have happened so _fast._

"Pep, I'm being serious." Tony very narrowly avoided making a remark about mood swings, but stopped himself at the last second. Pepper was already hesitant to listen to him; being spiteful wasn't going to encourage her to let him in. "We both know what happened in the workshop, okay? We know what I said and what I did, and for some stupid reason I've been thinking about that more than I've been thinking about anything else when I _should_ be thinking about… him or her." He took one hand off the wheel and gestured vaguely towards Pepper's middle, not sure how else to convey it right now. "So then I _realized_ that if I don't want to end up like my own dad, then I shouldn't throw away my kid like he threw away his." With that statement, Tony peeled into the garage and brought the car to a screeching halt in its parking space. Maybe that wasn't the best subject to bring up when he was behind the wheel.

Pepper tensed a little when Tony slammed on the brakes, but she quickly composed herself. She'd dealt with a frustrated Tony Stark on multiple occasions, but this was different, more delicate. That was something she didn't have nearly as much experience with, and she even felt her own chest tighten in response to Tony's final sentiment. "I don't want you to miss her life either," she replied, turning her eyes onto Tony after a brief moment of hesitation.

When she did, she was at least four or five different emotions flicker inconspicuously across Tony's face until he blinked them away, and his expression seemed to settle on some kind of surprise. "Her?" The word felt strange on his tongue, so he had to try it out again. "It's a… you're having a… _her?"_

"I believe the correct way to word that sentence would be ' _we're_ having a _girl_ ,' but yes, Tony. Her." Pepper couldn't quite decide if she was more relieved or put off by Tony's response. She decided to reexamine that again a little later, particularly after she slowly reached into her pocket and pulled out the printout of the ultrasound she'd gotten. She handed it over to Tony, almost holding her breath until she gauged his reaction. "What, are you nervous that you'll be outnumbered by women?" she joked weakly, trying to break through the confusion and not-quite-tension in the car.

Tony huffed out a dry chuckle. "Nah. I mean, unless Bruce has been hiding something from me, but… well, I can say from experience that he's still a dude." He watched Pepper roll her eyes before he noticed her holding the printout in his direction. His demeanor softened just slightly as he took it, studying the greyscale image for a few moments before he let out a little _humph._ "It, uh… she… actually looks like a tiny human," he remarked, probably quite stupidly in hindsight.

"Yeah, the unrecognizable-blob stage was over a while ago," Pepper murmured, watching Tony's face just about as intently as he was looking at the photo in his hand. "So?"

"So what?"

"What are you thinking, Tony?"

Tony was quiet for a moment. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately, being quiet—it was unusual, and even a little unnerving. This was a different kind of quiet, though. It wasn't the kind of quiet he'd been a few weeks ago, when he was scared and confused and reluctant to deal with any of this. Now, it was the kind of quiet that meant he was thinking maybe too hard, trying to piece together how he felt about everything. The emotions weren't all bad this time, though. In fact, he was mostly trying to make sense of the strange, almost prideful warmth he felt curling through the center of his chest. "I think it's pretty cool that we made this," he finally replied, and he looked up at Pepper just in time to see her lips curl into a smile after she sighed, the small exhale sounding some kind of relieved.

"I guess it is pretty cool," she agreed. C _ool_ wasn't exactly the word she would have expected to come out of this conversation, but if it meant that Tony was on his way to being a bigger part of this, she would take it. "Do you… want to feel her?"

" _Feel_ her, huh?" The typical Stark smirk appeared on Tony's face.

"God, you're disgusting. Give me your hand." She didn't wait for Tony to comply before she just reached out and grabbed his hand herself, pulling it to her stomach before either of them could change their minds. Tony flattened his palm against the smooth curve of Pepper's stomach, and it was only a matter of seconds before he felt the baby— _his_ baby—start kicking and squirming, probably in response to the different kind of warmth.

"Shit," he muttered distractedly, his mind too occupied by the tiny flutters he felt against his palm and by just how nice it felt to have Pepper holding his hand so closely again. "Someone's restless."

"Always is, really," Pepper said, involuntarily squeezing Tony's hand while her lips quirked into a smile. "I suppose we know who she takes after, then."

"Are you suggesting that I'm restless and fidgety and annoying?"

"I wasn't going to specifically pin it on you, but if you're accepting the blame…" The little smile on Pepper's face stretched into a grin, and she had to admit that this was the most genuinely comfortable and… happy, almost, that she'd felt around Tony in the past several months.

"Fine. Whatever." Tony was silenced again as he focused in on letting the warmth under his palm spread through the rest of him, and he sighed softly as he leaned over a little closer to Pepper. "I'm gonna be better about this, Pep." He finally tore his gaze away from her stomach to look up and meet her gaze. "I promise."

Pepper felt her eyes lock on Tony's when he finally looked back up at her, and the intensity of his deep, hazel gaze was just enough for her to feel the urge to use her mouth to kiss him again rather than forming words. She almost moved in to do just that, but she stopped the little hitch in her movement when she realized that she could still taste Bruce on her lips just a little bit, and that wasn't what this was about. Or at least it wasn't supposed to be. "Okay," she managed to say after another pause, forcing herself to blink. "I believe you."

"Okay." Tony grinned encouragingly, and he left his hand resting on her belly until it made sense to pull it away. He discreetly squeezed Pepper's fingers before he let go completely, and his hand immediately felt cold once hers was gone. "Come on, let's get back inside."

* * *

"So you went with her today, huh?"

When Tony made it back to his apartment in the tower, he was greeted by an empty bedroom and the squeal of the shower through the wall. For a moment when he'd gotten there, he debated on going somewhere else to wait until later that night to bring anything up with Bruce, but the shower turned off too quickly for Tony to escape so he decided to suck it up and stay.

He also very much appreciated watching Bruce as he got out of the shower, all dripping and naked with every bit of his wet hair matted to his skin. There was that, too.

So there Tony sat, stretched out on the bed with his arms folded behind his head, watching a very naked and very wet Bruce Banner flinch and stammer in surprise. "I thought you would have at least let me put some clothes on before you started asking questions," Bruce commented, patting himself dry with a towel before he wandered over to his wardrobe.

"And why would I do such a ridiculous thing like that?" Tony replied, his eyes unabashedly raking over Bruce's back and ass until the man unfortunately pulled on some sweatpants. Well, it was nice while it lasted. "I happen to appreciate the view. And you didn't answer my question."

"Didn't think the question needed answering," Bruce replied matter-of-factly, his hand pausing just before he grabbed a shirt to decide if he _really_ needed one. "I mean… you came, you saw, you took her home." He decided against the shirt, and squeezed a few stray droplets of water from his hair before he turned and stepped towards Tony again. "How did the ride back go, anyway?"

"Fine," Tony answered, the word a quick, staccato syllable. "But we were talking about you."

"Really?" A small, smug smile quirked the corner of Bruce's lips as he crawled into bed beside Tony. He scooted close enough to the other man that he could feel the heat of Tony's body against his own. "Usually you're so eager to talk about yourself." He leaned closer and rested his hand on the center of Tony's chest, just above where the arc reactor used to be. His hand trailed down Tony's abdomen as he shuffled in a little closer, and ever so lightly touched his lips to Tony's.

Tony let himself kiss back for a moment, one of his hands finding its way into his boyfriend's hair as Bruce sucked and tugged at his bottom lip. Bruce's lips felt so good against his own that Tony very nearly forgot about the things weighing on his mind, but when Bruce's hand trailed too close to the zipper on his jeans, Tony realized that he just couldn't do this without clearing his mind first. He'd done that too many times lately, and it was certainly starting to take its toll.

Slowly, and definitely reluctantly, Tony pulled away and opened his eyes, but didn't meet Bruce's gaze. "So are you gonna answer my question or not?" he asked, his eyes absently tracing the contours of Bruce's chest.

Bruce sighed quietly when Tony pulled back, the little sound halfway between annoyed and disappointed. "What question?"

"Why you went with her today."

Even though Tony wasn't looking at him, Bruce just stared at his face until he broke out into a chuckle. "Really?" he laughed, dropping his head back against the pillow. "I'm laying here with you, half-naked, damp, and quite literally about to put my hand down your pants and you want to talk about Pepper? That's really what's on your mind right now?"

"Yep."

Bruce had to hesitate for a second, just to absorb the fact that Tony _actually_ wanted to talk about that _right now_ , when Bruce could think of so many other things that they could be doing. But if Tony wasn't going to let it go until he got an answer, Bruce supposed he could give the other man that much. "I thought she could use some moral support," he answered, fingers absently dancing along Tony's lower abdomen. "Today was a big deal for her. I didn't think she should be alone."

Tony had been watching the progress of Bruce's hand along his stomach, his gaze unwavering until he processed Bruce's words and his eyes flicked upwards. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, feeling his heartbeat begin to pick up speed.

"Um… that I thought it might help her to have someone there with her?" Bruce raised an eyebrow. He really didn't know where Tony was going with this, or why he seemed so desperate to know. "Why are you so hung up on this, Tony?"

Tony balked at the question. Honestly, he really didn't even know how to answer. When he took a step back and thought about it, he was sure that Bruce probably had to be completely confused and probably a little taken aback right now—Tony had basically attacked him out of the blue without so much as a hello.

Everyone knew that Tony always bypassed that first step though, and just jumped right into what was on his mind. This wasn't any exception, and quite frankly, he still wanted an answer.

"I just… I don't know," Tony started, dropping his head back against the pillow. "I know you two are _friends,_ but I didn't think you were the kind of friends where you bring each other along to doctor's appointments. What other personal business do you and Pep do together? Do I even want to know?"

Bruce blinked slowly, taking a second to absorb Tony's little rant. _Christ._ He really didn't think it had been _that_ big of a deal. "Tony, if you're upset that I went with her today, you can just tell me," he said, keeping his eyes on Tony's face even if the other man wasn't looking at him.

"I'm not upset."

"Well, you're certainly acting like you are." Bruce sat up a little straighter, huffing out a quiet sigh as he pushed a hand through his still-damp hair. This really wasn't how he expected or wanted the night to go, but… well, he didn't always get what he wanted, anyway. "Look, I get it. This is your thing. You're the one having the baby with her, not me. But this is just as hard for her as it is for you, and if you weren't going to go with her today, then _somebody_ needed to, and I'm really getting sick and tired of watching her go through this alone. She deserves better from you, Tony. 'She' meaning Pepper _and_ your daughter."

"I'm trying," Tony almost snapped. He sat up on the bed and roughly pushed his fingers through his hair; maybe he should have just left it alone. If anything, he just hoped that Pepper hadn't told Bruce anything about what happened between them in more private moments—that was something Tony wanted to tell Bruce himself. "I'm trying to be better, Bruce, I really am, okay? It's just really hard to try to be better about this without—without—" He clenched a fist in his hair, not quite able to get the words out. He wasn't sure what words he wanted to use to describe it anyway.

Bruce was already regretting starting this conversation. The topic was still so sensitive, especially for Tony, but thinking about what happened between him and Pepper earlier that day made Bruce's heart beat just a little faster. Tony's stammering wasn't making it any better. "Without what?" he asked almost tentatively, wrapping his arms around his chest.

Tony had been putting a considerable amount of effort into keeping his eyes off of Bruce, but the man's subtle movement caught his eye and he looked up just for a moment. Bruce's face was just one version of that typical mask he wore before the two of them had gotten serious, back when everything was all pining and seemingly unrequited feelings. It looked like he was trying to silently mask the hurt he undoubtedly must have felt by watching Tony get so torn up over somebody else.

That not-exactly-neutral expression on Bruce's face made Tony yet again regret opening his big mouth. Things just seemed so much easier when he was quiet.

"I don't know if I can really be better about this without falling for her again." Tony said it as matter-of-factly as he could. Hearing that kind of sentence was already horrible enough, and he didn't want to make it worse for Bruce by using some kind of forlorn, melodramatic tone. "Okay? That's it."

Bruce wanted to say that he felt like he'd been hit by a truck, but that wasn't quite the case. Instead, he felt numb, as if he'd been waiting (and dreading) to hear those words for so long that the actual punch wasn't much of a punch at all. "Okay," he responded, his voice surprisingly stronger than he'd expected it to be. "Okay. Yeah. I get it. It makes more sense that way, anyway."

"Wait, what?" Tony looked up properly, concern and confusion drawn into his face. "What are you—what do you mean, _that way_? What way?"

"Well…" Bruce shrugged, lifting one of his hands to scratch the back of his neck. "If you being better about all this means you're going to go be with her, it makes sense that way. I… I'm not going to stop you from giving yourself and your child a better experience, Tony." It hurt like hell to say it, but Bruce couldn't bring himself to be so selfish.

"Jesus Christ." Tony sighed heavily, head falling forward into his hands again. If there was ever a time he wished he could go back to when things were better, it was now. "That's not what I meant. I'm not leaving you, Bruce. No. Fuck, no."

Bruce just raised his eyebrows as he looked back at Tony. His mouth didn't seem to want to form words at the moment, so he settled for letting his non-verbals communicate the question " _why not?"_

The wounded look on Bruce's face felt like a knife in Tony's gut. It always did. "I love you." The words felt dry and tasteless on his tongue—this wasn't how he ever wanted it to be when he admitted that little sentence, but there wasn't much he could do about it now. "I'm so fucking in love with you, Bruce. I'm not leaving."

 _I love you too._ Bruce wanted to say it, he was pretty damn sure that he felt it—he'd been so sure for so long that love wasn't something he could feel anymore, but if there was anything that he certainly felt for Tony, it had to be love. It was just such horrible timing for all of this, and as much as he wanted to utter the four words that his head was chanting like a mantra, all that came out was, "But you love her, too."

That wasn't something that either of them wanted to hear, let alone admit.

"You know, Bruce…" Tony sighed again and leaned back against the headboard of the bed. He definitely felt the urge and the _need_ to reach out and touch his boyfriend, feel that familiar warm, calloused skin beneath his fingertips, but the tension in the room seemed to suggest that it wasn't the right time. "You know, I'm not gonna say no." There wasn't any use in lying about it, anyway.

"Wasn't expecting you to," Bruce mumbled, and after he uttered the words, the two of them were met with several long, heavy moments of silence. Bruce's skin felt like static, and he was starting to hear low rumblings of the Other Guy in the back of his mind. He wasn't anywhere near an incident, but the beast was clearly starting to pick up on the situation—Bruce just couldn't tell exactly what the Other Guy was thinking. When Bruce felt the bed dip as Tony shifted, it was almost as if Hulk would have given him a shove towards the other man if it had been physically possible. He was tempted to act on the Other Guy's prompting, but before he could do so, an image of his encounter with Pepper earlier that day flashed through his mind, and Hulk sent him a familiar feeling of warmth and comfort—familiar only because that was what he always felt around Tony.

"I kissed her," Bruce blurted, and it wasn't until the words were already out in the open that he was able to clamp his mouth shut. His fingers curled into fists, and he nervously kneaded them into his legs. "Today. At the doctor's. I kissed her—or, well, she kissed me, but I… kissed back."

Tony lifted his head from where he'd had it laying against a pillow, and gave Bruce a quizzical look. He was caught too off-guard to be angry about anything yet, so for the moment he just raised an eyebrow as he took in Bruce's stiff stature. "You fuckin' with me, Banner?"

"No." Bruce swallowed thickly, then twisted to look at Tony. "I'm not. You were honest with me, so I figured I'd do you the same courtesy."

Tony was very tempted to make a comment about how _doing him_ would definitely be a _courtesy,_ but he made sure to stop himself. His mind was definitely traveling in that direction, however, and he probably should have found it odd that he wasn't even _mad_ that his current boyfriend had apparently been making out with his ex-girlfriend. Then again, Tony had done the same thing with Pepper not too long ago, so being any kind of angry would do nothing but paint him as a hypocrite.

Honestly, thinking about Bruce and Pepper together was actually kind of hot. Hotter than it should have been, and definitely the reason why Tony wasn't feeling any of the typical rage that anyone else probably would have (and should have) felt.

"Did you like it?" Tony asked, leaning forward with curiosity.

The look on Bruce's face would have had Tony in stitches if the cause for that question was anything other than the situation at hand, but even considering that, the man's round eyes and gaping mouth were still amusing. "I… yes?" Bruce stammered, trying to find the right answer. "I mean, I… yeah, she's great, but then I thought about you and what I was doing to you and…" He trailed off, shrugging and shaking his head.

"But you _liked it_?" Tony asked again, moving closer to prompt a definitive answer out of Bruce.

Bruce sighed, and looked up to meet Tony's eyes. "Yes," he confirmed, feeling a little flutter in his chest when he actually admitted it.

"And you like _her_ too?" Tony continued.

"Maybe?" Bruce couldn't decide if he was more confused or worried about Tony's inquiries. It seemed like Tony had some kind of agenda here, but Bruce wouldn't know what it was until he answered. "Clearly I'm feeling _something_ for her. Where are you going with this, Tony?"

Tony sat up a little straighter, and Bruce could have sworn he saw a tiny grin quirking at the corners of the man's mouth. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Knowing how your mind works, probably not," Bruce answered dryly.

"Bruce." Tony shuffled forward and gripped Bruce's shoulders with both hands. "Threesome."

Words had failed Bruce at the moment, and for a second he thought about how that had been happening far too often that day. " _What?"_ he finally managed to get out, the word a little strained despite how the tension in his muscles seemed to drain as soon as Tony touched him. "Do you—are you suggesting that sex is going to make this all go away? I don't really think that's _logical_ —"

"It's not a sex thing," Tony jutted in before Bruce could go any further, gently squeezing the man's shoulders. "Well, down the line there might be a sex thing—god, I _hope_ there'll be a sex thing—but, Bruce, no, we shouldn't _have_ to make it go away. That's the point. Threesome _relationship_."

Bruce had to stop and think for a moment. All of this was happening too fast—the appointment earlier with Pepper, the conversation with Tony, the _'I love you'_ s getting thrown around, _this._ He had to give himself some time to sort everything into their respective places in his mind before he could actually give Tony a reply. "So, polyamory," he said slowly, once the idea was finally starting to dawn on him.

"Yeah," Tony agreed. "Doesn't it just make _sense_?"

Bruce supposed it did. Of all the strange, ridiculous, and quite frankly inhuman things he'd dealt with in his life, for some reason this was one of the most unexpected. But it did make sense, and Bruce was very much inclined to give it a chance.

"It does," Bruce said, nodding absently, "it actually really does." He looked back up at Tony, and couldn't help but chuckle as he saw the excitable expression on his boyfriend's face that was really quite similar to how he looked whenever they made a breakthrough in the lab. "You realize that this will probably be the strangest conversation either of us have ever had with her, right?" he laughed.

A wide grin broke out across Tony's face when he heard Bruce's beautiful laugh, and it was definitely contagious as Tony leaned his forehead down on Bruce's shoulder and laughed as well. "Yeah, yeah, it will be," he agreed, "guess we should figure out how to bring that up to her, huh?"

"Might be a good idea." Bruce relaxed his arms and set one of his hands on Tony's waist, the other finding its way into Tony's thick, brunette locks. He could see a few strands of grey in the man's hair, but since Bruce really wanted to keep his sanity he wasn't going to point it out to Tony. "But we should think on it first. Don't get too far ahead of yourself, Tony."

"Mm, fine," Tony said against Bruce's neck. He supposed Bruce was right—really, this was all hypothetical right now, and there was no telling how Pepper was going to react. Honestly, he didn't even know how he'd gotten to this conclusion so quickly, but Tony decided not to concern himself with it too much in favor of keeping to Bruce's warm, sturdy, and still half-naked body. "You know how we can start thinking about it, though?"

Bruce smiled gently, combing his hand through the back of Tony's hair. "How?"

"You can start by picking up where you left off and putting your hand down my pants."


	8. 25 Weeks

"You're about to have the weirdest conversation you've ever had."

"Because that's always what I like to hear when I open my door." Pepper smiled wryly, looking between the two men standing in her open doorway. Tony had the stance about him that seemed like he was on a mission (which he clearly was, if the sentence he just uttered was anything to go by), and Bruce seemed just as quiet, reserved, and willing to smack some sense into Tony as he always did—but honestly, Pepper couldn't say she was surprised to see them there. "I also don't think that's true, but let's see how right you are. Come in."

The two men complied, Tony waltzing into the apartment as if it was his own (because technically, it kind of used to be) while Bruce's steps were more careful, slightly hesitant. His eyes flickered around the immaculately designed, tastefully decorated apartment, everything perfectly in its spot with the exception of the kitchen table that was covered in an array of papers, pens, everything. It reminded Bruce an awful lot of his own place in the tower, even if he hadn't stayed there much even before he moved in with Tony. He couldn't say that he'd expected anything less of Pepper.

"Can I get you boys anything?" Pepper asked, watching Tony plop onto the couch in the room off to the side. Bruce had decided to hang back in the kitchen with her, and he almost made a comment about how really _they_ should be getting things for _her,_ but he didn't get a chance to before Tony replied.

"A beer would be great," Tony called out, "if you have one."

Pepper glanced over at him. "I don't."

"Huh. Makes sense, you've never been much of a beer drinker anyway. Scotch?"

"Nope."

"Tequila?"

"Sorry."

Tony leaned forward on the sofa, eyebrows raised as he looked through the doorway at Pepper. "You don't even have _tequila?"_ he asked, watching her pour a couple glasses of water. "Come on, really? Do you not want me downing your supply or something?"

"There is no supply." Pepper wandered into the room, trailed by Bruce, and handed Tony one of the glasses of water before he could protest. "I got rid of all my alcohol a few months ago. Didn't want to be tempted… which I have been, many times." She gave Tony yet another wry smile. It seemed like it was just sewn into her expression nowadays.

"Shit." Tony lifted the glass to his lips, sipping at his water as Bruce took a seat beside him. He rested his arm along the back of the couch behind his boyfriend and looked back up at Pepper. "Pregnancy sucks."

"You have no idea." It would have taken a keen ear to detect the hint of pain in Pepper's voice, but a quick glance towards Bruce told her that he'd picked up on it, and understood where it came from. "So what exactly is this weird conversation we're apparently having?"

"Oh, yeah. That." Tony leaned over to set his glass on the end table, and shuffled a little closer to Bruce when he leaned back. His arm fell a little closer to Bruce's shoulders, and brushed against his back just enough that Tony could tell how tense the other man was. "So…" Tony's mouth went dry, and he suddenly realized how nervous he was about this, and how little they'd actually planned _how_ they were going to ask this kind of question. "We've been talking. About the, uh… stuff that's happened."

Pepper did her best to keep her expression from giving away the fact that her heart had just dropped into her stomach. She should have known that _this_ is what they wanted to talk about, but it had been a week since she'd kissed Bruce and a couple months since she'd kissed Tony, and—and she'd thought that if they'd gone this long without facing it, then maybe it had gone away. When she really thought about it though, it was actually quite stupid to think that anything like that could possibly go away. Not when the situation was… well, what it was. "Oh," she said plainly, "you have." She paused. "All of it?"

"All of it," Bruce confirmed, looking up and meeting her eyes properly for the first time since they'd gotten there. Pepper was doing a good job of hiding her thoughts behind her typical neutral mask, but Bruce could tell that she was starting to feel just as uncomfortable as he was. God, he just wanted to get this over with. "So we, uh, were thinking—"

"Wait," Pepper said, holding up a palm and cutting off the conversation before it could go any further for now. "I think I know where this is going, so before you get too far I want to say that I understand, and I'm sorry for putting both of you in that position." She looked between the two of them, trying to read their expressions. "I really didn't mean for this to be so complicated. I didn't mean for it to happen at all."

Tony blinked slowly at the apology. He was tempted to ask where the apology even came from, or what she meant by _it_ when she said that she didn't mean for _it_ to happen. _It_ could have meant anything, like she hadn't meant to kiss Tony, or start having feelings for Bruce, or become pregnant in the first place since that was basically what started this whole mess. Obviously nobody had _meant_ for the baby to happen, but it did, and at least Tony had finally realized that it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. "Slow down there, Pep," he said after he'd somewhat digested everything she had just said. "That's not even where we were going."

"How is that not where you were going?" Pepper asked, and despite the condescending connotations of a question like that, her tone and expression conveyed that she was genuinely confused. The way that both Tony and Bruce hesitated didn't really help her curiosity or worry, nor did the quick glance the two of them exchanged. They looked as if the words they wanted to say were caught hanging in the air between them, and neither of them could quite catch what was meant to be said.

"Well… were thinking that since, um…" Bruce was finally the one to start the sentence, but he stumbled over his words like he couldn't figure out how they felt on his tongue. "Since we all seem to have some… feelings… for each other, that, uh—"

"Do you wanna date us?" Tony saved Bruce from having to continue, mostly because he just wanted to rip off the band-aid and get the question over with. It was a weird enough question as it was, and he especially didn't want to give Pepper's mind too much time to spiral into worry about whatever else they could have been there to ask.

Now it was Pepper's turn to gape and stammer. Her expression shifted from confused to incredulous to something like disbelief, and she couldn't quite pick just one. "Excuse me?"

"Do _you,"_ Tony repeated, gesturing at Pepper before pointing back at himself and Bruce, "want to date _us._ Both of us."

"At the _same time?_ " Pepper raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah." Tony just seemed so _casual_ about this, and Pepper really couldn't wrap her head around it. Neither could Bruce, honestly, despite how much he was definitely on board with the idea. "Like a threesome, but not just a sex thing."

"The word here is polyamory," Bruce mumbled, correcting Tony's terminology yet again before he turned his gaze back to Pepper. She looked… like she was trying very hard not to look stressed, or at least like she was trying to figure out if this was actually happening.

"Yeah, yeah, I know what it is," Pepper said, her voice somewhere between aloof and sounding like the question was finally starting to dawn on her. Her eyes roamed along the plush carpet as she thought, but it was until she caught a glimpse of her still-growing stomach that she looked up at fixed her gaze on Tony. "Are you asking this because of the baby?" she asked, and the betrayal building behind her eyes was already visible before anyone had time to answer the question. "Because if you are—"

"No." Tony sat up straighter, very much taken aback despite how much he'd been expecting this kind of response. "Christ, you really think I'm that shallow?"

"Well, I'd certainly hope not," Pepper retorted calmly, her tone so steady that it was almost unsettling. "Because I have to admit this kind of sounds like a pity thing."

Tony's eyes narrowed, and he could feel that familiar, prickly heat start to build up under his skin that was always there whenever he and Pepper butted heads. He was definitely starting to question if this was even a good idea at all. "How the hell did you manage to turn this into a pity thing?" he nearly spat.

"Oh, I don't know," Pepper started caustically, dropping her hands into her lap to try and keep them from curling into fists. "Maybe because it wasn't until literally last week that you decided you even wanted to be a part of your kid's life, and after that you probably realized that kicking your pregnant girlfriend to the curb for so long was a pretty shitty thing to do, and because you're _you_ and you _always_ have to make things right—even to your own detriment sometimes—you had to find some way to make that all go away. Which, apparently, is…" She gestured vaguely, trying to get the point across, "this."

"Wow." Tony huffed an exasperated, disbelieving sigh. "Well, if that's how it's going to be—"

"He's not the only one asking you, Pepper." Bruce had finally found enough of his voice to interrupt, because he really couldn't listen to that argument any longer, and he knew that if he did that he'd probably be leaving a Hulk-shaped hole in the wall. He would have hated to make such a mess in Pepper's impeccably organized apartment. "It's not a pity thing. It never could be a pity thing, I would never _let_ it be a pity thing, because I care about you too and _Tony's not the only one asking you."_

The stifling silence in the room made it clear that neither of the other two had been expecting Bruce's interruption, but neither Tony nor Pepper made any attempt to stop him from continuing. Instead, they just looked at him, Tony shrinking down just slightly while Pepper's expression seemed to soften minimally.

"Look, obviously the baby is the elephant in the room here, and I'm not going to lie and say that she wasn't part of what started this whole conversation," Bruce continued, "but that's not saying she's the _only_ reason, and I'm sure that we all could have come to this conclusion some way or another eventually, but… circumstances are circumstances. I know that better than anyone." He had to pause for a moment to gather his thoughts. This wasn't like anything he'd ever had to explain before. "Us asking you to be a part of our relationship has nothing to do with pity or making up for the past or any of that, but it has everything to do with Tony and I thinking that we could all be happy together. Now, I don't know how you feel about us," he felt like he did, but he wasn't going to assume anything, "but we both feel things for you. It's both of us asking, okay?"

Bruce swallowed thickly once he finally got all his words out, and made an effort to sit back against the cushions and try to loosen up. He made a point to look down and scratch the back of his neck to give himself a moment before he had to deal with Pepper's reaction, and he wasn't sure if Tony's gentle hand on his back meant that the aftermath was good or bad.

Really, though, it wasn't either of those. Pepper's feelings were all over the spectrum at the moment, hopping between frustrated and shocked and confused and maybe even a little lonely. For some reason, it always seemed like people always waited until she'd finally figured her life out to spring something new on her, and then she had to reevaluate all the factors and line up the facts and generally just go through the whole mess of putting her life back together all over again.

It sucked.

Maybe though, just maybe, it would be easier if she actually had someone else, or in this case, _two_ someone elses, to lean on. And those two someone elses were sitting on her couch right across from her, watching and waiting with those big, inky eyes of theirs that were brimming with something that looked awfully close to love. (Well, Tony's definitely were, but she was surprised to notice that Bruce's expression was well on its way to being identical to his boyfriend's. She couldn't help but wonder when that had started, how long it had taken, but most importantly, _why._ )

With a quiet sigh, Pepper sank back further into the sofa. She rubbed a hand over her face before she moved it to brush her fingers through her hair, and set her gaze back on the two men opposite her after giving herself a moment to look away and try to process. "I, um, I need to give it some thought," she admitted, and the small, simultaneous nods of Tony and Bruce's heads indicated that they'd been expecting exactly that. "It's just… it's a lot to process."

"I know it is," Bruce said as he straightened up, and Pepper watched the discreet movement of his hand as he gave Tony's leg an affectionate squeeze. He gave Pepper what looked like his best attempt at a smile, fidgeting slightly since he really didn't know if that was their cue to leave. "Take your time."

Pepper nodded, and at that point the two men definitely knew it was time to leave her alone. Bruce was the first to stand up, and he held out his hand for Tony to take, but the other man seemed to be hesitant to look away from Pepper just yet so Bruce took a few quiet, cautious steps towards the door to give them a minute.

Tony kept his eyes locked on Pepper even though his body was trying to tell him to get up and follow Bruce, but when his legs finally managed to lift him he ended up taking the few short steps towards where Pepper was sitting instead. She looked at him quizzically as he just stood there, but then he leaned over and braced his hand on the armrest beside her, and Pepper's mind was suddenly more preoccupied with just how _close_ he was as he murmured to her only loud enough for both of them to hear.

"Just because I fell in love with him doesn't mean I stopped loving you, Pep."

It was a sentiment she'd heard before, and just like the last time, Tony walked away and left her to mull over it. She called out a gentle "see you boys later" as they left, listening to the door click shut before she was left alone with her thoughts again.

So she just sat there quietly for another few moments, trying to keep her emotions in check for the sake of staying calm, until the logical part of her brain spoke up and she realized that maybe sitting alone and in silence wasn't the best way to deal with all of that sudden, ridiculous information. She leaned over and grabbed her phone from the table beside the sofa, unlocking it before she pulled up her message stream with Natasha.

 _Come down to my place when you can,_ she typed. _Bring alcohol. You're gonna need it._

* * *

"You know, Stark is lucky I had one last bottle of Vodka in my cabinet so I didn't have to raid his for some decent alcohol," Natasha commented offhandedly as she wandered through the door to Pepper's apartment. She turned the bottle over in her hands, eyes scanning the label. "Shame you can't have any." She looked over at Pepper with a crooked smile on her face before she flopped down beside the other woman on the couch.

"God, I wish I could." Pepper sighed and rolled her head over on the cushion, looking up at Natasha from where she was slumped down against the sofa. The sly little smirk on Natasha's face prompted a tiny smile to curl the corner of Pepper's mouth, but it was slightly bittersweet and only lasted for a moment. "But I'll be exercising that impeccable self-control I've gained from twelve years of working for SI."

Natasha chuckled dryly, quirking her eyebrows in a way that confirmed she knew exactly what Pepper meant. "I get the feeling you're already exercising that control," she commented, "because you never tell me to actually _bring_ extra alcohol unless it's something Stark-related. What stupid thing did he do this time?"

"Wow, _completely_ skipping the small talk?" Pepper teased. "Not gonna do your little spy thing, feel me out and see who I really am?"

"I already know who you really are," Natasha said matter-of-factly, but still rolled her eyes fondly. "I've figured it out by piecing together all the tidbits I've gotten from years of small talk. But if you insist… how are you, how's work, how's baby?"

"Unfortunately, I haven't had the same luck with you," Pepper said with a dry smile. "Work is work, still trying to fend off this one investor who seems to have come out of the woodwork from Hammer Industries. Baby is fine… restless, as always… and I'm…" She trailed off, twisting a strand of hair between her fingers as she tried to figure out _what_ exactly she was at the moment.

"Confused? Conflicted? Trying to figure out whatever stupid thing Stark did?" Natasha guessed, eyebrow quirked.

Pepper turned her head towards the woman beside her again. "How'd you figure that one out?" she asked, almost rhetorically, because she had to admit that it was probably obvious.

"You're twisting your hair." Natasha flashed a grin. "You do that when you're confused." She watched Pepper look down at the lock of ginger hair between her fingers before consciously untangling it and dropping her hand to her stomach instead. "It's also just totally obvious, so don't get too creeped out that I've memorized your habits."

"Not creeped out at all," Pepper replied with a quiet, half-hearted laugh. If it was a few years ago and she'd only known Nat for a short time, she may have been, only because she wasn't used to anybody actually paying that much attention to her. But Natasha's sneaky and over-analytical personality had become something of a regular expectation by now, so Pepper really couldn't be surprised that the woman knew her most miniscule nervous habits. "Trust me."

"Good. So are you gonna tell me what's got you so twitchy? I'm not quite at the mind-reader skill level yet."

"Thank god." This time Pepper's laugh was more genuine, and it prompted a chuckle from Natasha as well. The moment faded quickly though, and Pepper was back to trying to figure out how to even bring this up. "I don't even know how to word this," she admitted with a shrug.

Natasha all but rolled her eyes. "Trust me when I say that I've heard and probably seen worse than whatever Stark's gotten himself into this time."

"Well, it's not that it's _bad,_ " Pepper started, and the more her mind beat around the bush the more inclined she was to just say it and lay it all out there. Maybe actually getting it out of her mouth would make it feel more plausible, less ridiculous and doubtful. "Tony and Bruce just came down here and asked me to be in a threesome with them," she finally blurted, and she had to admit that it was a relief to just rip off the band-aid.

When she looked over at Natasha, the redhead looked very much like she was trying to hold in a bout of hysterical laughter, lips pursed as her green eyes twinkled with amusement. She carefully reached over and grabbed the bottle of vodka she'd set aside, popping it open but hesitated before bringing it to her lips. "What?" she asked, the giggle audible in the one simple word. She took a draw from the bottle, clearly using it as a mechanism to keep her from laughing too hard. "You mean they waited until you're six months pregnant to ask you to have sex with them?" she asked after she'd swallowed, hints of that shit-eating grin still on her face. "That's kinky."

Pepper sighed, sinking further into the cushions. "Well… yes, but it's not just a sex thing, Nat," she tried to clarify, but Natasha still seemed far too indulged in that idea to change tracks right now.

"I mean… a threesome sounds like it could be fun," Natasha babbled, taking another sip from the bottle in her hand. "Not sure about both of _them,_ though. If I had to pick one, I'd fuck Banner."

It took a minute for Pepper to process that remark, and when she did her head snapped over to look at Natasha, an eyebrow raised. "Really?" she said curiously.

"Yeah." Natasha shrugged casually. "He acts all quiet and unassuming around all of us, but that has to mean he's a total animal in bed," she explained, turning her gaze to meet Pepper's eyes. "Plus, I kinda dig the whole 'sexy nerd' thing. And considering how you actually seem like you're thinking about this, you probably do too," she added, grinning widely.

Pepper trapped her bottom lip between her teeth, flicking her eyes away from Natasha just for a second. "Okay… yes," she admitted, because she had to face that _yes,_ she was definitely very attracted to both men in this situation, " _but,_ it's not just a sex thing." She almost cringed at the term _sex thing,_ because it seemed to be a very common phrase among the three of them who were involved in this, and she was getting tired of having to try and differentiate.

"Then what kind of _thing_ is it?" Natasha asked.

"It's a relationship thing," Pepper explained briefly, "as in they asked me if I wanted to be a part of their relationship."

"Oh." Natasha blinked, absently tracing the opening of the bottle with the tip of her finger. "Well, what's so bad about that?"

"Nothing." The reply had come on instinct, barely giving Pepper any time to actually put some thought into the question. "At least… I don't think there's anything. I can't figure out what's stopping me."

"Okay," Natasha started, pausing to take one last sip of Vodka before she set the bottle on an end table, "you need to break it down. You have to tear it apart, look at every sign, evaluate it, figure out what it means, then put them all back together and look at the big picture. It'll make way more sense that way instead of trying to look at everything all at once." She shifted on the sofa, turning to face Pepper and tucking her legs up underneath her.

"Is that what you do when you over-analyze me?" Pepper joked dryly, shifting to sit up a little straighter herself.

"That's what I do when I over-analyze everybody," Nat replied dismissively. "Spy thing. Anyway, we'll start with the obvious—you have feelings for Stark, yes?"

Pepper hesitated before she answered. It wasn't that she didn't know how to answer the question, because the answer was fairly obvious, but she just didn't know how she felt about treating this like some kind of math equation. Logically, it probably made more sense that way—it would give her a chance to look at her feelings more objectively and figure out if taking the offer was really the best thing for her _and_ her child. "Yes," she responded eventually, deciding to just go with it. "Always have, always will."

If she'd looked a second later, Pepper would have missed the tiny smile on Natasha's lips before she continued with the next question. "And what about Banner?"

"Yes." The answer was easy, without hesitation; there really wasn't any questioning it anymore. "Before you ask, yes, I've already acted on those feelings for them, and yes, I want to continue acting on them. The feelings aren't really the problem."

Typical Pepper, Natasha thought, always trying to get to the point in the fastest way possible. Natasha probably wasn't the only one who thought sometimes that Pepper needed to work on separating her professional tendencies from her personal ones, but Nat was guilty of the same thing, and she couldn't bring herself to be _that_ much of a hypocrite. "Then what's the problem?" she asked, "Don't say you don't know. You wouldn't have called me down here if you didn't know."

"No. I wouldn't have." Pepper drew in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then exhaled a long sigh as she looked down towards the floor. She could sense Natasha's stance next to her, how she was probably sitting there with those perfect eyebrows arched, open and waiting for an answer. Pepper knew that, of all people, Natasha would be the one for yank the words straight out of her mouth if she didn't say them on her own, so Pepper decided to just face it. "What if it's a mistake?" she asked, the question directed more at herself than her friend beside her.

"Anything can be a mistake, Pepper." Natasha did her best to keep her voice from sounding hollow. "We both know that."

"I know," Pepper said, "but what if I do this and it ends up horribly? Tony and I obviously broke up for a reason, so what if I decide to do this and that happens all over again? And it wouldn't be just me and him this time, it would be Bruce too, and then I'm gonna have this baby and _she's_ going to suffer because her parents couldn't get it together and figure it out." She huffed out another frustrated, broken sigh, and set her hands instinctively and protectively over her stomach. "I can't do that to her."

Natasha's eyes carefully tracked Pepper's movements, taking in the defensive way she held herself, and after those observations alone it was easy to tell that this was definitely more than just a _sex thing._ "Well, I'm obviously no expert in parenting," she said, and she could have sworn she saw Pepper crack a dry smile, "but from what I've seen, no good mother would let her kid get caught in the middle of all that. And we all know that you're gonna be a good mom, so don't even worry about it." Comfort and reassurance really weren't Natasha's areas of expertise and she couldn't tell if she'd been helping at all, but she figured she might as well try. She knew that Pepper would do the same for her—in fact, she already had several times in the past. "Why did you and Stark split the first time, anyway? Is that even something that could happen again?"

"He was in love with someone else." Pepper glanced at the woman beside her, and Natasha didn't need a verbal explanation to know who that 'someone else' was. "I was tired of being in a relationship where I was only second best."

"Can't blame you there," Natasha murmured in agreement, but recomposed herself quickly. "But you know, when you do the math… if you're all in a relationship with each other, and you all love each other—or something like that—there isn't an issue of anyone being second place to someone else on the outside," she explained matter-of-factly with a shrug.

Pepper ran the words over in her head for a minute, quite literally doing the math and eventually arriving at the conclusion that Natasha actually had a point. "That's true," she said, her posture relaxing minimally as some of the tension finally started to drain from her muscles.

"Uh huh." Natasha smiled gently when she noticed that Pepper seemed to finally be working it out. "Until that baby comes," she added, reaching over to nudge the hand Pepper still had on her stomach, "then literally everyone is gonna take a backseat."

"In theory." Pepper smirked, and the expression pulled a chuckle out of Natasha.

"Yeah, I'm still not sure if Stark is capable of loving someone else more than he loves himself," she laughed, grabbing her bottle of alcohol again to swallow some down. "So are you gonna do it?"

Pepper tipped her head back to rest on the back of the couch, eyes tracing the ceiling. Admittedly, actually talking it out definitely had her leaning more towards saying yes, but it was just in her nature to think about things more than that. There were still several variables to consider and probably another conversation with Tony and Bruce to be had, but Pepper decided that her brain had enough for that day. Any more of this and the hormones were probably too likely to take over. "I need to think about it more," she answered, and left it at that.

"Fair enough." Natasha waved the bottle in Pepper's direction as a gesture of an invisible toast. "But if you _do_ do it, you have to promise me one thing." Pepper looked over at her and hummed questioningly. "You _have_ to tell me about the sex."

A bout of laughter bubbled from Pepper's throat, and the suggestive smirk on Nat's face didn't do much to squash it. "Deal," she agreed, and still let the smile stay on her face even after the laughter had faded. They sat in silence for a few moments after that, surrounded by only the ticks of a clock and the swish of vodka in a bottle. "Thanks, Nat," Pepper said warmly.

"Any time." Natasha flashed a smile. "Wanna drink and watch bad reality TV?"

" _You_ can drink while we watch bad reality TV."

"Shit. Right." Natasha took another draw from the bottle before she reached for the remote, flicking the TV on. "Well… sucks for you, works for me."

Pepper just hummed in agreement, fixing her eyes blankly on the TV screen as Nat flipped through the channels to find a distraction that both of them happily welcomed.


	9. 26 Weeks

For Pepper, the past week had felt very much like she was back to square one.

Well, maybe that wasn't completely true, because it wasn't like she was avoiding Tony or Bruce on purpose. It just so happened that she'd been in the office and they'd been cooped up somewhere else (the lab, probably) and she just hadn't run into them. She also hadn't made any effort to go find them voluntarily, but all of that just seemed to work out in what was a rather convenient coincidence.

If anything, 'square one' meant that she was back to be just as confused and conflicted as she had been a few months ago. The only things that were different now were that her back was killing her a hell of a lot more than it had been previously, and that she really didn't even have a damn reason to be so at odds with close to everything in her life at the moment.

The signs were all there. Tony and Bruce had basically laid their hearts out on the line for her, and there wasn't any reason for her _not_ to walk into their apartment and say yes to the whole threesome ordeal—or at least none of the reasons she'd come up with were any good.

Natasha was right. Anything could be a mistake. When she really looked at it, Pepper supposed that maybe the bigger mistake would be not giving those two a chance at all. She had a child on the way, after all, so she wasn't really allowed to do things for her own selfish reasons anymore.

It was a mixture of all those things that had her walking down to Tony and Bruce's apartment that Friday night after work. It had been weighing on her mind all day (and all week), and even if she'd almost talked herself out of it when she'd made a quick pit stop at her place to change, Pepper knew that it would only get worse if she didn't deal with it. So she'd go down to their place, talk to them, and let come what may. She couldn't keep guessing and surmising forever.

When the elevator let her off on Tony's floor, Pepper was a little surprised to see that the apartment door was left ajar. Maybe it wasn't so odd, because Jarvis usually announced visitors anyway, but it just seemed so unlike Tony to be so careless about safety after New York, or after the Mandarin, or after anything involving his _superheroing_ or _avenging_ in general.

Pepper nudged the door open a little more after she knocked, and walked quietly into the apartment to see if anyone was there. It was likely that they may have just left the door open on their way to the lab or something, but that theory was crushed when she heard two familiar voices coming from the den off to the side.

"I've done this literally a million times before. I don't know why the hell it's not working if I only want to increase the palladium by _one_ —"

"Because it's not balanced."

"What do you mean it's not balanced? I balanced it. I definitely balanced it."

"No, you didn't balance—ugh. Hold on." There was a pause, then some rustling of papers followed by a quiet _humph._ "Oh, well… there. That works better. More power, less palladium."

"Oh." Another pause and another crinkle of paper. "You're a fucking genius, Banner."

"I know."

Pepper smiled to herself at how she could almost hear the smug little smirk in Bruce's voice, and when the room fell silent again after that remark she figured it might be a good time to stop eavesdropping and reveal herself.

She rounded the corner into the den, but had to look around for a second before she spotted Tony and Bruce kneeling on the floor in front of a mess of papers, kissing deeply. They were so involved in each other that Pepper definitely felt like an intruder, but she also couldn't seem to look away. They just looked so perfect together, and rather than driving her away it lit a small fire somewhere inside of her.

Eventually, though, it got to the point where it just seemed too weird to be standing there watching without their knowledge, so Pepper cleared her throat as she leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. "Hi," she said, and she had to suppress a smile at the way Bruce flinched out of the kiss while Tony took his time pulling away.

"Hi," Bruce stammered out after a moment of recomposing himself, visibly trying to suppress the soft pink that colored his cheeks. "How long have you, uh, been there?"

"Not long. Maybe a minute or so," Pepper replied, looking between the two of them and doing her best to hide her amusement at the stark differences in their expressions. Bruce at least seemed to be cooling down a little bit from his embarrassment at being caught, but Tony was smirking, and that gave her the idea that he knew exactly what this was about.

"You know, Pep, it's customary to knock," Tony said, leaning against the ottoman he was sitting next to. "Who knows what you could have just walked in on... unless that was your plan." The stupid grin on his face widened, but a quick jab to the side from Bruce's elbow easily stopped him from continuing.

"I knocked," Pepper said with a little shrug, folding her arms over her chest. "You didn't answer and your door was open, I was just satisfying my curiosity," she added with a dry smile before dropping her eyes to the papers scattered on the floor. "If you two are busy, I can come back later."

"No," Bruce said almost immediately, and both Tony and Pepper were surprised at how quickly the word came out. At least he didn't seem hesitant, Pepper thought. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. "No, stay. We probably need a break anyway. Have a seat." He gestured towards the sofa that was nearest to Pepper, but it took him a moment to realize that it was covered with more papers and folders than were on the floor. He scrambled to his feet quickly to clean it off and make space, and Tony didn't make an effort to hide his amusement at that either. It reminded him too much of the days before they got together when it was all stolen glances and mutual pining, and Bruce was all too flustered trying to hide his obvious attraction. The only difference now was that there was a new person in the picture, and she was just as hopeless as the other two.

"I need a drink," Tony announced, lazily pulling himself to his feet. "Any requests?" The other two shook their heads, and Tony disappeared into the kitchen for a minute. While he was gone Pepper stepped forward and sank into the couch, sighing at the lessened strain on her back once she was sitting. Bruce took a seat beside her, and after a moment of what seemed like an internal argument with himself, he relaxed and scooted just a tiny bit closer to her.

After another few seconds of silence, Bruce lifted a hand and gently touched Pepper's shoulder to get her attention. "How have you been feeling?" he asked quietly. He'd been concerned about her ever since he'd accompanied her to the doctor's that day, but couldn't seem to find her alone to ask.

Pepper gave another little shrug in response, her shoulder tingling where Bruce's hand had touched it. "As well as can be expected, I suppose," she replied. Normally that answer would have been fine, but they both knew what exactly was expected of her condition, and Pepper didn't need anything more than the gentle yet sad smile on Bruce's lips to know that he understood.

They didn't get a chance to continue the conversation before Tony walked back in with a soda in hand, and for that Pepper was grateful. She knew that Tony would find out about her complicated pregnancy eventually, but that was a topic she'd rather leave for another day. Tony took a sip of his drink before he set it on the end table beside the sofa and pulled the ottoman over, setting it in front of the other two so he could face them as he sat down. "So what's on your mind, Pep?" he asked, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. His eyes were bright and curious as they always were, and Pepper suddenly felt an overwhelming amount of pressure for something that really shouldn't be hard at all.

A lot, Pepper thought, a hell of a lot was on her mind right now. Too much for her to keep track of, but she just kept telling herself that as soon as this situation resolved itself, everything else would be easier. "I've been thinking about your offer," she started, but paused when she noticed the smirk back on Tony's face again.

"You make it sound like a drug deal," he joked, but shut up quickly after Pepper lightly kicked him in the shin. "Okay, ow, that was unnecessary. What about it?"

"I think we should try it." Like basically every other conversation she'd had with these two, it made more sense to just get to the point rather than beating around the bush. "You know, I… I was thinking about it for a while there, but then I realized that we'll never know if it's going to work unless we actually give it a shot. We can keep guessing and analyzing all the possible outcomes as much as we want, but there are some things that even one of your equations can't solve," she added teasingly, "so I think we should give it a go. If you two still want to." As soon as she finished, she could see the two men visibly perk up, and the atmosphere in the room changed. Pepper couldn't quite pinpoint what it was, but it was definitely less uncomfortable than it had been before.

"We definitely still want to," Bruce said, shifting just the tiniest bit closer. Tony nodded eagerly in agreement.

"Definitely," Tony repeated for emphasis, and he leaned in considerably closer than Bruce had. "So does this mean I can…?" He made an obvious point to lower his gaze to her lips before looking up into her eyes again, and as much as Pepper wanted to lean in, match his distance and give him an entirely non-verbal 'yes', she told herself to wait at least a minute.

"Hold on," she said, holding up a hand to stop either of them from advancing any further just for that moment. "Before we get too far ahead of ourselves here… I think we should take it slow."

There was only a second of pause before the silence was broken by Tony's laugh. "Uh, honey? I think we were done with the 'taking it slow' thing a long time ago," he chuckled, stretching his arm forward to place his hand on her swollen stomach. Pepper dropped her gaze to Tony's hand and couldn't help but huff out a quiet laugh of her own as she gently wrapped her fingers around his. She glanced over at Bruce a moment later, and he was wearing the same kind of amused smile as his boyfriend was.

"Don't look at me, there wasn't anything slow about that time we made out," Bruce said lightly with a goofy grin, holding up a palm in defense. He lowered it a second later, resting his arm on the back of the couch just close enough that his fingertips brushed Pepper's shoulder. "But I won't do anything that makes you uncomfortable."

"Okay, let me rephrase that," Pepper said with a quiet sigh. "I'm not talking about 'taking it slow' like we're in junior high, okay? We're all adults here. We're gonna fool around, we're gonna do stuff." She actually had to pause for a second just to appreciate the stupid grin on Tony's face at the prospect of _doing stuff,_ and she couldn't keep herself from smiling a little bit too. "All I'm saying is… we've all been making such a point to say that this isn't just a sex thing. I don't want us to get to that point too fast and have that define what this… we… are before we give anything else a chance. Does that make sense?" She raised her eyebrows expectantly and looked between the other two.

"It makes perfect sense." Bruce was the first to reply, and the way he gently tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear coupled with the affectionate little smile on his lips made a comfortable warmth curl through Pepper's chest as she looked at him.

"So I guess that means we're not having sex tonight?" Then Tony said that, and Pepper made a point to pinch his hand in retaliation.

"Very funny," she deadpanned. Fortunately, though, she'd known Tony long enough to read him like a book, and enough to know that the sarcastic remark and glimmer in his eye was just his way of saying he understood. "Not sure how fun sex would be with this to deal with anyway," she added wryly, brushing a hand over her middle.

"Please." The offhand word fell off Tony's tongue with ease, and he made a point to lift himself off the ottoman and wedge himself between Pepper and the arm of the sofa, consequently (and probably intentionally) pushing her closer to Bruce in the process. "Not gonna be a problem, Pep." Finally, Tony seemed to decide that it was a good idea to quit asking questions and just move in to kiss her instead. He was tentative at first, which was definitely a side of him that Pepper wasn't used to at all, but she supposed that with the warmth of Bruce pressed in close on her other side it made sense for them to be hesitant at first—but once they'd scouted the new territory and actually realized that this was a real _thing,_ the kiss softened into something more normal and comfortable, and for Pepper, it just felt right.

She did eventually have to breathe, however, but the way Tony had essentially draped himself over her made up for the loss of contact when she pulled away from the kiss. Pepper could feel him grinning close to her cheek, and for a second she questioned again if this was actually happening.

"So does that make it official?" Tony asked after he'd caught his breath, peeling his eyes open to look at Pepper. "I'm pretty sure that makes it official."

"Mmm… almost." Pepper didn't even think about saying yes. As much as she had been wrapped up and thoroughly distracted by Tony's lips against hers, she was still acutely aware of the warm body pressed against her other side. She attempted to wriggle partially out of the blanket Tony had created with his body to look at Bruce, who looked as if he had just snapped out of some kind of wonderment. "We just need the seal of approval from one more person."

Bruce made a show of looking around the room with an eyebrow quirked skeptically, and Pepper had to stifle a laugh at just how much Tony had rubbed off on him. "Who, me?" Bruce asked, looking back at the woman beside him with mock disbelief. "Oh. Can't imagine why you'd need that, you had my approval a while ago," he added with a lopsided smile.

"Yes, but only figuratively." Pepper nearly mirrored the arch of his eyebrow, and with a sly little smile, she moved as close as she could get to close the distance between their lips. Even though this wasn't exactly new territory for her, Pepper was still struck by the heat that jolted through her when their lips met, and she easily relaxed under the pressure of Bruce's mouth against hers.

It wasn't long until Bruce seemed to find comfort as well, and the way the back of her neck tingled under his hand and the feeling of the pleasant sparks running down her spine assured Pepper that what she felt the first time they'd kissed wasn't just adrenaline. That was something real, and _this_ was something real, and it didn't take long for the contact to move past the innocent, chaste brush of lips it had started as. Bruce had taken it upon himself to tilt his head and deepen the kiss, and by the way Pepper could feel Tony squirming on her other side, the other man could definitely tell that there was tongue involved.

Bruce was the one to break the contact when it seemed that they were both thoroughly satisfied, even if the two of them barely moved an inch from each other. "Approval enough for you?" Despite the slight tremor in his voice the smug undertones still came across, and Pepper pinched his shoulder where her hand had ended up.

"I suppose it'll do." Pepper dealt back the banter effortlessly, and the little twist of Bruce's lips made her wonder exactly what she'd just gotten herself into with these two.


	10. 28 Weeks

"You know what's kinda weird?" Tony asked as he poured his third cup of coffee that morning, his voice echoing throughout the large, airy kitchen space. The one in their apartment was quite a bit smaller and definitely more comfortable, but Bruce had a thing for always making a pit stop at the tower's large communal kitchen in the morning before work. It made more sense to have coffee and breakfast there, he would say. _If we're going to live in a giant tower with our friends, we might as well be social, Tony._

Tony supposed the man was right. Still, it would have just been easier to roll out of bed and walk ten feet to his own kitchen rather than roll out of bed, actually put on pants, and take an elevator trip downstairs.

"What's weird?" Bruce looked up from the morning paper, pushing his glasses up his nose to see Tony properly. Tony still wondered why Bruce even read the actual paper when there was so much technology around here, but he wasn't going to cancel the subscription if it was the little things that made him happy.

"We've been with Pep for two weeks and we still don't live together." Tony ambled over to the table and leaned his hip against the edge, sipping his still too-hot coffee.

Bruce's eyes stopped moving across the page in front of him, and he paused for a moment before he chuckled quietly and shook his head. Tony quirked an eyebrow and set his coffee down, waiting for an explanation.

"Two weeks?" Bruce looked up at his boyfriend with something close to an incredulous expression. "Is two weeks your threshold for moving in together? That seems awfully fast."

"Hey, you can't talk any shit, Banner. You started sleeping in my bed after like, two days."

"Touché," Bruce conceded. "In my defense, the couch in the lab isn't particularly comfortable and your place is a lot closer than mine."

"Don't think that's a coincidence." Tony winked and Bruce snorted, but the subject evaporated quickly as Tony took a seat beside Bruce. "And _yes,_ I know two weeks normally seems fast. But don't you think this situation is a little, uh… different?"

Bruce hummed and shrugged. "I guess? It's still a new relationship. It just has more participants than usual."

"Okay," Tony started, scooting closer to Bruce and peering at him over the edges of the newspaper. "Let me paint the picture here. I lived with Pep for a good three years, so it's not like it's a new concept. Now I live with you, but she's still a part of this little triad thing. But for some reason only two thirds of the triad live in the same apartment and sleep in the same bed. You can't tell me you don't think it's weird that she sneaks back up to her own place whenever we go to bed?"

Bruce had given up on reading the news when Tony kept talking, so he set the paper down in front of him and gave the conversation his full attention. "Well, it sounds weird when you call it _sneaking,_ " he replied. "Aside from your word choice, I really don't think it's weird. A lot has changed for her in the past few months, maybe she's just not ready for another one yet." He reached over and placed his hand over Tony's, wrapping his fingers around the other man's and giving them a squeeze. "Just give her some time."

Tony looked down at their twined hands and sighed lightly. Maybe Bruce was right (hell, Bruce was usually right), but that didn't necessarily stop him from thinking about it or taking it a little too personally. He definitely had his reasons for being wary of relationships.

"What is who not ready for?" Tony had been so deep in his thoughts that it actually startled him when Pepper walked into the room. She was usually easy to identify by the click of her heels, but between the extra strain from her pregnancy and Bruce's insistence that heels were bad for her back not only all the time but especially now, she'd been opting for different, quieter shoes. (And even though Tony was almost always turned on by the way Pepper's legs looked when she wore heels, he appreciated having a few inches height on her when she left them behind).

Tony twisted in his chair to look at her, watching her move around the kitchen and find herself something quick for breakfast. He was quiet for a moment as he watched her, struck again by just how lucky he was to have these two incredible people in his life, before his mouth gained a mind of its own and blurted his thoughts without his consent. "When you do plan on moving in with us?"

Pepper paused with her hand halfway into the fridge, taken by surprise by Tony's sudden proposal. She knew that question would come eventually, but she supposed she'd expected a little more conversation about it first. "Uh…" She took another moment to think, grabbing a cup of yogurt from the fridge to bring with her on her way to work. "I haven't really thought about it. Soon, I guess?"

"How soon?" Tony asked. "Like, today soon?"

Pepper looked down and smiled into her coffee mug, taking a sip before she wandered over to the table and stood between the two chairs. She set a hand on Tony's shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "We can _talk_ about it today," she answered, "but I don't think it'll happen today. We have to work some stuff out first."

"We could get it done today," Tony protested, "you know, I have the suits and the bots, and you could not go to work… everything could be wrapped up and done by six. Totally doable." He shifted in his chair and leaned his head against Pepper's side, essentially using her stomach as a particularly warm pillow and catching the little smile on Bruce's face as he did so.

"Just give it up, Tony," Bruce murmured, hiding his smirk in his mug of tea.

"What he said." Pepper grinned and slid her fingers through Tony's hair, mussing up the dark locks. "Because I need to go to work. Actually, I'm already late for work."

"Please," Tony whined, "you work for yourself. There's no such thing as late."

"There is on my schedule." Pepper gently pulled Tony's head up by his hair and bent down to give him a kiss, knowing that would keep him quiet and satisfied for at least a little while. "I'll come down to your place after work and we can talk about it, okay? But I do really have to go." She patted his shoulder before she turned her gaze onto Bruce, stifling a quiet laugh at his amused expression. "Keep an eye on him. I better not walk into my apartment later and find it empty."

Bruce grinned. "I'll keep it under control."

"Thank you, sunshine." She leaned in to kiss the smile off his face, and she had to stop herself from threading her hand through his curls or else she'd probably never make it to work that morning. "See you boys later."

Tony and Bruce both said their quick goodbyes, and Bruce shoved his nose back in the paper just as Tony folded his arms on the table and leaned forward to rest his head on top of them. "Oh, Banner," he sighed, "when did we get so domestic?"

"I don't think we truly qualify as 'domestic' until we stop flying around in metal suits and turning into massive rage monsters," Bruce pointed out dryly, flipping the page. "But if what we are right now is your definition, I have to say that I like it."

Tony turned his head to rest his cheek on his arms and look up at Bruce. "No, I like it too," he said, "it's just weird. Never thought it would be like this."

"Well, you might want to get used to it sooner rather than later. It's just going to get worse when she has that baby." Bruce finally seemed to be satisfied with the paper, and folded it up before setting it aside. He watched Tony shove his head back into his arms after a mangled noise of distress, and scooted his chair closer to drape his arm over Tony's hunched shoulders. "Quit whining, you'll be fine."

"Will I? Will I really?" Tony's voice was muffled, but it was probably for the best that his face was hidden so he couldn't see the ridiculous smile on Bruce's face. "I'm not good with kids. With all the crying and the pooping and the drooling."

"If those are the only things you're worried about, then you're definitely going to be fine." Bruce chuckled and leaned down to kiss Tony's head, shaking his shoulder gently to try and get the man to sit up properly. "Come on, let's go not be domestic and blow some stuff up in the lab. I have some ideas for an upgraded repulsor system that I'm hoping you'll like."

"That sounds like a much better plan."

 **###**

"Usually I'm not opposed to that kinda thing, but I think we upped the power a little _too_ much on that prototype," Tony remarked, fastening a towel around his waist as he walked out of the bathroom. He'd spent the better part of the last half hour scrubbing grime and ash off his skin in the shower, and the effort it took to get himself clean this time definitely convinced him that he needed to upgrade the testing unit down in the workshop. "A little help in there would have been nice, you know."

Bruce lazily rolled his head on the pillow, leaning over to set his tablet on the small table next to the bed. His eyes raked unabashedly up and down Tony's bare, damp skin, and he folded his arms behind his head when he finally looked up to meet Tony's eyes. "What, and ruin the suspense?" he asked teasingly. "Sometimes I make bets with myself on whether or not you'll come out with a towel. Fairly good motivator."

Tony turned away from the wardrobe, abandoning his search for a pair of sweat pants to look back at Bruce instead. "Did you win?" he asked, a stupid grin on his lips.

"No," Bruce replied smugly, "I really had my money on naked this time."

"Oh, well… can't have you losing your own bet," Tony said, wandering back over to the bed and sliding himself onto the edge of it. "That's embarrassing." He twisted and lowered himself down on top of the other man, ignoring how loosely the towel hung around his waist as he pressed his lips hard against Bruce's.

Bruce didn't waste any time in pulling Tony closer and holding him firmly. He could still smell whatever soap the man had used in the shower, and the feeling of damp skin beneath his palms and pressed against his torso made it easier for Bruce to just take things upon himself and push his tongue into Tony's mouth. Tony moaned unnecessarily loudly against Bruce's lips, and a few droplets of water spattered from his hair as he moved his head to deepen the kiss.

"Hey," Bruce quipped, gently pushing Tony off of him for a moment, "you're dripping on me."

"That's dirty," Tony mumbled, having migrated his lips to Bruce's neck as soon as the previous contact was lost.

"I'm so glad I have context for that one." They were interrupted by Pepper's voice and the dip of the bed as she crawled up beside them. She seemed to have made a habit of walking in on the middle of their conversations or otherwise, not that either of them really minded.

Tony couldn't quite stop the laugh that bubbled out of him, and he gently grazed his teeth along Bruce's neck when the man swatted his shoulder in response. "About time you got out of that office," Tony said, pulling himself away from Bruce's neck and rolling back onto the bed between him and Pepper. "You know, Pep, I've been thinking all day about how to get you moved into this place."

Pepper blinked, and fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Thank you, Tony, I had a lovely day. How was yours?" she deadpanned.

"In between bouts of ruining the repulsor testing unit, he did in fact spend the day brainstorming ideas of how to get you down here more often," Bruce answered in lieu of whatever equally sarcastic remark Tony would have come out with. He leaned over the still very naked and very damp Tony to press a kiss to Pepper's cheek, murmuring _how was your day?_ against her ear. Pepper mouthed _fine_ in response, giving him a little grin.

"Yeah, and during all the brainstorming, I still couldn't figure out why you won't move in with us," Tony continued to babble, "enlighten me?"

Pepper sighed, sinking back against the pillows to get as comfortable as she could manage. "I'm going to move in with you," she confirmed, "honestly, I just haven't given it that much thought. There's some things we should work out first anyway."

"Like what? Whose place we're gonna live in? Is that _really_ that hard of a decision?"

"Well, that, among other things." Pepper shrugged. She really wasn't expecting for Tony to grill her so much about this; what the three of them has was so easy and casual and _happy_ considering the bumpy road that had gotten them there, and she didn't want to get too bogged down in technicalities yet. "I mean, we need to think about what place is the best suited for us, and we're going to have the baby in a few months so we have to think about what she's going to need, and—"

"Why don't we just start over?" Bruce jutted in then, because he could sense the conversation that was about to happen before it even started. "We don't have to live in either of our places. The penthouse apartment is vacant, right?" He looked at Tony, and the other man paused before confirming with a nod. "That's definitely enough for the three of us plus the baby. And it wouldn't be someone moving into someone else's place, it would just be us… starting over with something new."

"How sentimental of you," Tony remarked, but the words were quickly accompanied with a grin as soon as he saw Bruce's expression. "Sounds like a plan to me. Everyone agree? Done deal?"

Well, Pepper thought, that certainly worked itself out quickly. In the nearly 15 years she'd known Tony, she still never failed to be amazed at how quickly he was able to make a decision and completely change an entire situation while simultaneously pulling her along into it. It was truly a phenomenon that she'd probably never understand. "Uh, sure." She'd thought about protesting and saying that they needed to talk about it and think it over more before making the final decision, but even a few seconds of consideration was enough for her to accept Bruce's idea, at least on one level.

"That was way easier than I thought it was gonna be," Tony remarked with what sounded like a sigh of relief. "So in that case," he continued, rolling over to press up against Pepper's side, "you gonna call your mom and see if you can bunk over with us tonight?"

Pepper looked down at him, pushing her fingers through his hair that had at least halfway dried itself by now. She was hesitant to respond, because she definitely had her reasons for staying by herself at night—but they were all adults here, and she knew that the two men had to be suspicious that she hadn't spent the night with them yet even in the most innocent of ways.

So she plastered a smirk on her face and curled over Tony, leaning in close to his lips. "Well, considering that you've already knocked me up," she started, murmuring the words against Tony's lips before she kissed him quickly and lightly, "I don't think she'd mind a sleepover."

Tony hummed quietly in satisfaction, catching Pepper's lips with his own one more time before she could move too far away. "About time," he muttered, but quickly made up for the remark with a grin. "You know what I'm gonna do? I'm going up to your place and grabbing some of your stuff, just so you don't decide to go up and get it yourself and end up deserting us," he announced, pulling himself back up properly, "like you did the other night."

"I didn't _desert_ you," Pepper defended, sighing fondly. "But if you want to save me the extra trip, be my guest."

"I'll do you the favor," Tony said, "you need to rest, anyway." He brushed his hand over her stomach on his way off the bed, and when his towel nearly fell off as he stood up he realized that maybe pants would be a good idea. He pulled on a pair of sweats and didn't bother with a shirt, leaving the other two with a sing-songy " _I'll be back"_ as he wandered out of the room.

Bruce watched him go, shaking his head at Tony's complete lack of regard for anybody else who might be roaming the tower. Although, if they were anything like Bruce, they might even enjoy the view. "So," he said once he knew Tony was fully out of earshot, rolling onto his side to face Pepper. "Want to tell me the real reason you haven't been sleeping over with us?"

Pepper didn't turn her head to look at him right away. She could tell by the tone of his voice that he was probably wearing that ridiculous expression of his that he always used to get information out of her, the one with the wide, curious eyes and the innocent little smile. It was something she'd seen plenty of long before this relationship had even happened, and there were even times Pepper was guilty of using it herself. "Force of habit, I suppose," she answered, pulling one of the many pillows over her middle to give herself something to do with her hands. "Nothing personal."

"Really." The fact that she had said 'nothing personal' made Bruce wonder if it was in fact the opposite, but giving her an accusatory response would do nothing but push her away. "So when you woke yourself up after falling asleep in my arms and scurried back off to your place last night, it was just… involuntary? Interesting habit you have there, darling."

"It's weird, I know," Pepper replied as casually as she could manage, absently toying with a loose string on the pillow. "I'll make sure to not do that tonight."

Bruce bit back a sigh, chewing on his lip instead. She had to know that Bruce was onto her, but yet again he was amazed by just how good she was at avoiding topics she really didn't want to discuss. Pepper was just about as stubborn as Tony, if not even more, and Bruce found himself questioning how exactly he'd managed to end up with _two_ of the most stubborn people he knew.

"Pepper, look at me, please?" Bruce's tone softened, and he lifted a hand to gently touch her cheek and hopefully coax her to look at him. "I think we both know what this is actually about."

Pepper felt her skin warm underneath Bruce's hand, and she really couldn't avoid looking at him any longer. She turned her head and met his eyes, and as much as she wanted to let her walls break down when she saw his face, she couldn't quite get to that place yet. "Fill me in, then," she said, hoping the deadpan tone gave him the impression that she _really_ didn't want to talk about this.

It was probably a good idea to actually sit up properly for this conversation, so Bruce pulled himself up so he was eye level with Pepper. He reached out and pulled the pillow away from her so he could take her hand, loosely lacing their fingers. "You haven't told him yet," he said. It wasn't a question because he could tell, and posing it as a question would just give her another chance to deny it. "About the complications."

The immediate response that came to mind was ' _what complications?_ ', but Pepper definitely knew better than that. She'd been answering his questions with statements that created more questions ever since the conversation started, and maybe she'd be able to continue that if only he hadn't been with her at the doctor's those few weeks ago. Except that Bruce was too smart for any of those games, and Pepper didn't want to insult his intelligence any longer. "It's always the worst at night," she admitted, fixing her gaze on their joined hands instead of his eyes.

Bruce couldn't say that he hadn't expected that kind of response, but the information still made him cringe in sympathy. He hoped Pepper hadn't noticed the small action. "Then why don't you stay here and let us help you?" he asked, doing his best to not sound hurt or accusatory. This was her life, her struggle, and her and Tony's baby—Bruce was just lucky that they'd let him be a part of this at all. The last thing he wanted to do was overstep his boundaries or make Pepper question her decision to let him in (although, he supposed it was his obligation as one of her significant others to look out for her, even if she didn't always like his way of doing so).

For Pepper, at least, this conversation was starting to feel a lot like the same one they'd had at the doctors. _Why didn't you tell anyone, you could have told me,_ Bruce had said, and now, much like then, she was waiting for _are you going to tell Tony?_ Logically, she knew she'd have to eventually, but at the same time… she'd made it this far without Tony knowing, so there wasn't anything saying that she couldn't make it all the way.

Or at least she could have if they hadn't fallen into this interesting triad of a relationship, because then they wouldn't be moving in together and sleeping with each other and she wouldn't have to worry about hiding anything. She didn't regret it by any means, but maybe she had slightly underestimated how much things would change.

When Pepper realized that it had been a good minute of silence between them, she made herself look over at Bruce only to find his eyebrows raised expectantly. Somehow the expression didn't come off as rude or prying like it did on most people, and Pepper just chalked that up to his kind eyes and the gentle pressure of his hand on hers. "I guess I just don't want you two to see me like that," she finally said, making an attempt to shrug it off.

Bruce licked his lips, trying to figure out how he wanted to deal with that answer. Pepper seemed to have looked away when he did, so it gave his eyes the chance to sweep over her body and try to read the signs. The normally soft, sweet curves of her slender figure were now riddled with tension, and the way her free hand was curled over her stomach suggested that the touch was far more defensive than delicate. There wasn't any doubt that she was far more on edge than she had been ten minutes ago, and the last thing Bruce wanted to do was rub her the wrong way—now especially. "Am I allowed to ask what you don't want us to see you as?" he asked carefully, looking up at the side of her face.

"Weak." Her response was slow and measured, as if she was trying out the word to see how it felt on her tongue. It didn't feel quite right, because as many times as she'd felt that way recently, admitting it was something totally different. "It makes me weak, and I don't exactly want to broadcast that."

"I don't think telling Tony and I when you're in pain really counts as broadcasting any weakness," Bruce said, doing his best to not break his composure despite how much he was already hurting for her. "That's just… being human. Which, by the way, you are allowed to be."

"You don't get it." Pepper supposed that maybe he did, because he was the _Hulk_ for god's sake, and if anyone didn't want to broadcast weakness it was probably him. "The last time I let myself be… the last time I let my guard down, I let myself get nabbed by some disgusting, second-rate scientist who tied me up, took advantage of me, and literally injected _fire_ into my veins." Admittedly, she'd had some rather irresponsible lapses of judgment after that and definitely very recently, but none of them constituted being _weak._ "Before the Extremis… I was his rock, you know? Then after that _he_ had to fix _me_ and it just felt so backwards and weak, and I don't want to go back to that." She didn't know where all of these words were coming from. She'd barely managed to admit that to herself in her own private thoughts, and now somehow it was all out in the open, laid out in a perfect line for Bruce to examine. "Rocks don't break."

"Yes they do." Bruce felt like someone had reached into his chest, ripped out his heart, and stuck it right on his sleeve, and he was sure that his face showed it. By all means, he understood where she was coming from—maybe not in the sense that he was the rock for someone else, but he'd always had to be the rock for himself and the Other Guy. On occasion, Hulk was quite literally a rock himself, but Bruce knew all too well how easy it was to break. And seeing Pepper waver like this, seeing her question her strength over something she really couldn't control, hurt like hell. "If there's enough pressure, they always do."

He shifted closer and pulled Pepper into his arms, tucking her head down against his chest. She leaned into the touches much easier than either of them expected, and Bruce just focused on running his hands along her back and sides to offer as much comfort as he could.

"It just took so long to get him to even care about this baby," Pepper said quietly, and Bruce could feel the gentle brush of her lips against the bottom of his neck. "And even longer for him to be _excited_ about it. Telling him about the complications would ruin that so easily."

Bruce wanted to tell her that she was jumping to conclusions too soon, but he was sure that she knew better. Maybe it wouldn't exactly _ruin_ Tony's hard-won care and excitement, but it would certainly taint it and shroud the man in worry—hell, even Bruce was worried, and the kid wasn't even his. He'd also seen Tony when something hit him hard, and heard all too much about the man's sometimes uncontrollable anxiety. It wasn't something he ever wanted to see again, but that didn't change the fact that Tony had the right to know what Pepper wasn't telling him.

"It would be hard on him, yes," Bruce said gently, threading his fingers through Pepper's thick, soft hair before smoothing the strawberry blonde locks down her back. "But you've been saying the whole time that you want him to be a part of this. As horrible as it is… this is part of it too, Pepper."

Pepper sighed and closed her eyes. She supposed that she had been fairly selfish by withholding information from Tony like that, but she would argue her own point by saying that all she wanted to do was protect him, like she had so many times in the past. Bruce was right though, the complications were just as much a part of the whole situation as everything else, and some things just weren't meant to be lied about.

"I know," she finally whispered, and despite the low volume of her voice, Bruce could clearly hear the heartbreak.

The conversation didn't go much further, partly because Bruce didn't want to see her hurting any more than she already was, and partly because they were interrupted by Tony a few moments later. Despite how much he wanted Tony to know about what was going on, it was Pepper's news to tell, and he wasn't going to ever betray her trust like that if he could help it.

"Well, I see you two are able to get on just fine without me," Tony joked, dropping a small duffel bag on the end of the bed, even if it was just to showcase his resourcefulness. His eyes paused on the two of them for a minute to take in the sight, and in between thinking of just how lucky he was to have fallen into all of this he noticed that Pepper didn't seem all too comfortable despite her position pressed warmly against Bruce's body.

"You were taking too long, we had to keep warm somehow." Bruce smiled cheerfully, and after a discreet nudge to Pepper's side, she looked up and gave Tony the best grin she could manage. "What kept you up there for all that time anyway? Nothing too mischievous, I hope?"

"More like trying to figure out how the hell this woman has her clothes organized," Tony muttered playfully, pulling some pajamas out of the bag and tossing them in Pepper's general direction. The comment as well as the action earned him a light push from Pepper's foot, so he rolled his eyes and surrendered easily. "Okay, finding things isn't that bad. Not messing it up is the hard part," he flashed his signature cocky smile, "I also may or may not have made a pit stop at the kitchen."

"That explains it," Pepper muttered, a little bit of amusement coloring her voice as Tony rolled his eyes and wandered into the bathroom with Pepper's toothbrush to put it away.

Bruce chuckled quietly at the whole exchange, just as impressed by the easy, casual give-and-take as he always was. He hadn't expected everything to fall into place so nearly perfectly with the three of them (excluding one glaringly obvious thing, of course), but he wasn't going to complain that it had. "So are you going to tell him?" he whispered while he had the chance, giving Pepper's waist an encouraging squeeze.

Even though she'd been hoping that Bruce would drop the subject as soon as Tony came back, Pepper had been expecting that question at some point that night. "Eventually," she responded, and the word had made it out just as Tony strolled back into the room and before Bruce had the opportunity to protest.

Although, when Tony finally crawled back into bed beside Bruce and stretched his arm across them both to rest a gentle hand on Pepper's stomach, protesting to anything just seemed like a waste of time and breath. It could wait a little longer, Bruce supposed, if it meant preserving the comfort and calm they had in that very moment before they had to face the inevitable pain and hardship that he knew would have to come eventually.


	11. 29 Weeks

It hadn't taken long for the three of them to move up to the penthouse, mostly because the definition of 'moving' in this case really only meant walking up to a fully-furnished apartment with a few bags of clothes and necessities. Actually, it could have also meant having some of the bots bring up those few bags if Tony had his way, but Bruce insisted that some things just needed to be done by human effort. Apparently, moving was one of them.

Things hadn't really changed all that much, except that they were now all sleeping in the same bed in an apartment that belonged to all of them instead of just one. Despite Pepper's initial hesitance to the idea of spending the night with them, it was actually working out quite smoothly. Tony was finally happy with their living arrangements (well, all of them were), and she and Bruce had managed to work out a system to deal with those nights when she woke up in pain that ensured Tony would stay asleep while Bruce was always close enough to help her. They both still hated lying (or _withholding information_ ) about it, but Pepper supposed she could be okay with it for the time being.

The third day after they'd moved in together found the three of them lounging in the spacious living room that overlooked the city skyline. It was a typical early Sunday afternoon, that is if "lazy" meant looking over company budget reports or generating some kind of new formula or tech design—but they were all enveloped in the silent company of having each other there, so it counted.

Tony was curled up at Pepper's side, legs stretched out across the sofa with his upper half resting on the side of her arm. His body didn't leave much room for Bruce to fit on the couch with them, so the other man was slumped in a chair off to the side with his face shoved into a notebook. Between the quiet rustling of cushions when one of them moved and the soft, steady sound of Tony's breaths beside her, it was just the right amount of comfort and quiet for Pepper to not mind looking over the month's latest dull budget report.

The task was just about mind-numbing enough for her to not notice the subtle sparks of pain in her back and belly, but even the seemingly endless amount of tiny charts and even tinier numbers couldn't distract her from the little jolts that came here and there. She'd told Bruce that it was always the worst at night, which was true, but as the weeks went on the days seemed to be catching up with the nights. Pepper carefully pulled her arm out from under Tony and placed a hand on her stomach, hoping that the subtle movement might help the pain without disturbing Tony.

Clearly the maneuver wasn't perfect, though, because Tony shifted and grumbled anyway. "I was comfortable there," he whined, pulling himself up to lean on the back of the sofa instead of his girlfriend's side. He had just about gotten over it and gone back to his tablet before he spotted what Pepper had done with her arm, and he gave her hand a little nudge with a smile on his face. "Is she kicking?"

Pepper dropped her gaze from the papers to her hand. "Little bit," she lied, and the untruthful statement came out so easily that it was actually quite unsettling. "She really doesn't know how to let me work," she joked, her tone hopefully light enough to be believable.

Tony smiled wider, and scooted closer to side his palm over Pepper's stomach beside her own. "Good, that means you can blame someone besides me for once," he said, and Pepper would have made an effort to laugh if she wasn't so focused on hoping Tony didn't notice that there definitely wasn't any kicking going on under his hand.

"I'm sure she'll still blame you most of the time," Bruce piped in. A soft smile graced his lips at the way Tony was curled around Pepper, but when Pepper turned her eyes onto him she was met with the same look he always gave her in the middle of those pain-stricken nights. _Just tell him,_ Bruce's eyes seemed to say, _he deserves to know by now._

Pepper knew she had to. Tony wasn't dumb, and he was bound to find out soon anyway—it was just the prospect of finally getting those words out into the open that terrified her almost as much as Tony's inevitably heartbroken reaction did. However, as much as she wanted to believe otherwise, now was probably a good time to tell him, or at least as good as it could be.

"Tony," Pepper started, moving to set the papers aside and put her full attention on the man pressed up against her. "I think we need to talk about something." She turned to face him properly, reaching over to gently push her fingers through his messy hair. (Tony had a habit of not actually combing or even taming his hair if the day's events didn't call for it. Today was obviously one of those days.)

Tony looked back up at Pepper, prepared to answer her request with an upbeat, chipper reply until he caught sight of the expression on her face. It wasn't exactly somber, but definitely serious, and Tony had definitely learned his lesson several times over the years that an expression like that on Pepper Potts wasn't meant to be joked about. "Okay," he said curiously and a little cautiously, "what's up, Pep?"

Well, here it was. The moment of truth. Pepper had been imagining how exactly to have this conversation ever since Bruce had brought it up a few days prior, but none of the options she'd come up with seemed like any good. The fact of the matter was that there really wasn't any _good_ way to bring this up. It was much like the way she had to tell him she was pregnant in the first place—she just had to say it, get the words out, and let him do with it what he may.

"I, um…" Pepper paused to clear her throat, doing her best to not look at either of the other people in the room. "I haven't been completely honest with you about this pregnancy." _Great,_ she thought, _that just sounds even more horrible._

Tony wasn't really sure what to do with that information, and his face would have showed it if Pepper had been looking at him. "What, are you gonna tell me that the kid isn't mine?" he joked, because that was always his default coping mechanism. "Cause if that's the case… well, you better get Banner to finish up that nursery."

"No, no, she's definitely yours," Pepper confirmed hastily, ignoring Tony's attempt at humor. She slid her hand along his arm in a way that she hoped was familiar and comforting, her gaze flicking towards Bruce who gave her a subtle, encouraging nod. "There's just been some… complications."

"Complications?" Tony's expression shifted between curious, confused, shocked, and even a little taken aback. "What do you mean, complications?"

Pepper drew in a breath, held it for a moment, and then let it go in a small sigh. _Here we go._ "Just… complications with the pregnancy," she said, dumbly, because clearly that was obvious. "Not with the baby—she's fine, as far as I know. It's just… it's me, I really haven't been doing well with it—you know, physically, it hasn't been easy, and there's some risks…" The sentence trailed off. She was rambling by now, and she really wasn't sure what to say after that; "sorry" didn't really make sense, except to apologize for not telling him, but she wanted to hear his reaction before she implicated herself any further.

If Tony hadn't known what to do with her statement about being dishonest, then he certainly didn't know what to do with this. A small voice in the back of his mind wondered if it was some kind of sick prank, but one quick glance between Pepper and Bruce squashed that idea. They both looked too serious to possibly be kidding, and Tony knew better than that, anyway.

He looked back at Pepper, who seemed to look as if she was waiting rather impatiently for his response. If he hadn't been so taken by surprise, he might have tried to soothe the nervousness and tension that was clearly drawn into her features, but Tony could barely get his own thoughts together let alone read someone else's.

"That's, uh… wow," he finally uttered, scratching at the back of his neck. "That's a lot of information all at once. Risks and complications and… you _think_ she's okay?" It wasn't really a question he wanted an answer to quite yet, but one would have been nice.

"She was okay the last time I was at the doctor's," Pepper replied, actually surprised at how steady her voice sounded.

"That was over a month ago." Tony quickly did the math in his head, and dropped his hands back into his lap. There was a moment of silence between them, and Bruce had been planning on being the one to break it until Tony beat him to the punch. "How long has this been going on?"

Pepper very much considered lying. Hell, she'd been lying about basically the whole thing up until now, so it wasn't like it was the first time she'd be breaking some unspoken code of ethics. But Tony was smarter than that, and he would definitely catch on—it was just that his reaction to the truth worried her much more than his reaction to her dishonesty. "Since the beginning," she finally answered, and the words came with a little sigh and a glance away.

The statement took a minute to sink in, and once it did, Tony really didn't know what to think or feel. The closest emotion he could vaguely pinpoint was betrayal, and it hurt to think about how far that was from the easy comfort they'd had with each other just minutes ago.

"And you never told me?" Tony asked, his voice tight through his clenched jaw. "That baby has been at risk this whole time and you waited until _now_ to tell me?"

"I told you that the problem was more with me than the baby," Pepper said, because the only thing she could think to say was something to correct Tony's assumption. Typical. She could feel her hands trembling, and she cursed herself for bringing this topic to light without any kind of mental preparation. Usually she was excellent at dealing with confrontation and thinking on her feet, _especially_ when dealing with Tony, but her damn hormones were just so out of control lately, and there wasn't much she could do about her involuntary emotional reactions.

One glance towards Bruce told her that he was well aware of how much Pepper was regretting this conversation, and in a moment of uncharacteristic bitterness, she damn well hoped he felt guilty for pushing her to tell Tony the truth.

Tony, for his part, was still trying to make sense of what Pepper was telling him until he realized that he hadn't heard a peep out of Bruce. Surely the man would have said something by now, but Tony looked up just in time to catch the glance the scientist shared with Pepper, and it didn't take much analysis of Bruce's resigned expression to figure out what was going on here.

"Did you know about this?" Tony shot the question towards Bruce, and after a brief flinch in response to Tony's unexpectedly biting tone, Bruce nodded. Tony huffed in exasperation. "What the fuck, Pepper?"

In the time it had taken Tony to process the whole ordeal, Pepper had set her elbow on the armrest of the couch and leaned her face in her hand. Her fingers were bunched into the side of her hair, tugging lightly in an attempt to keep her grounded. "He didn't find out because I told him," she murmured, knowing it was a weak defense, but she didn't have much else for an excuse.

"Still, how could you _allow_ him to know before _me?_ "

"Because he was there for me when you weren't!" Pepper's head snapped up from where it had been leaning into her palm, and whatever timid apprehension that was present in her eyes before was now replaced with fiery anger and a twinge of hurt. "Maybe you should have thought of that before you got pissed off at me for not telling you about complications with this pregnancy that you didn't even _care_ about until a month ago."

She didn't give Tony any time to respond before she pulled herself to her feet and stalked off back to the bedroom. Her emotions were in too many places right now, and she needed to get away before she said anything more that she'd really regret.

"Pep," Tony said, calling her name to her back as she walked away. Her last words felt like a knife in his chest, but she was already out of the room before he could begin to apologize for being such a stupid _ass._ "Fuck."

"Just let her go for now," Bruce said quietly, carefully, because he really wasn't sure if Tony wanted to hear anything out of him right now. He reached over and gently set a hand on Tony's arm, hoping the touch might help. "She's hormonal, and it's really not helping her emotions. Give her some time to settle down."

Tony grumbled irritably, his arm flexing underneath Bruce's hand before he made an attempt to dispel some of the tension. _Damn right she's hormonal,_ he thought bitterly, but the better part of him shook off the thought quickly—that wasn't Pepper's fault, and he couldn't blame her for it. "I can't believe you knew about this," he muttered, his voice still prickly despite his attempts to calm himself.

Bruce knew that remark was coming, but that didn't stop the small amount of guilt he had from coming out in a sigh. "What she said is true," he started to explain, rubbing his thumb over Tony's skin. "I didn't find out because she told me. I went with her to that appointment and I overheard what the doctor said."

Upon hearing Bruce's explanation, Tony couldn't help but think that it should have been him with Pepper at the doctor's that day, but they already had that particular discussion and dwelling on it wasn't going to change what was happening now. "Well, _you_ could have told me about whatever these complications are," he retorted, really just trying to save face at that point.

"I wasn't going to betray her trust like that, Tony."

"But somehow it's okay for both of you to betray mine?"

That comment knocked Bruce down for a minute, and in the time it took him to get back up he realized just how right Tony was. He'd spent so much time scolding Pepper for withholding the truth that he hadn't even taken a step back to see that he was disrespecting Tony in the same way. Clearly, Bruce had underestimated just how much it would take to make a relationship work with two other people rather than one, and he'd never been too skilled at managing a traditional relationship in the first place.

"No," Bruce surrendered, the word surprisingly easy to say just because there wasn't any way for him to deny it. "No, it's not okay."

Tony just hummed in what sounded like self-righteous agreement, sinking back against the couch. As annoyed as he was with both of them at the moment, he gentle pressure of Bruce's hand on his made it a little bit easier to breathe. "Were either of you ever planning on telling me?" he asked, hoping he would get a straight answer. "Or was I just never supposed to know?"

He felt so stupid. So, so fucking _stupid._ All that time had passed and he'd never noticed anything wrong, or even thought to ask—maybe he'd been right all along. If he wasn't responsible enough to help his girlfriend while she was pregnant, then he definitely wasn't cut out for fatherhood.

"I wanted to tell you," Bruce said, and he felt his chest tighten when he examined the pain and betrayal etched into Tony's face. "But I'm not going to speak for Pepper, so… if you want answers, I would talk to her."

"Yeah," Tony sighed, taking his free hand to rub it over his face. He wanted to get this over with sooner than later, but he wasn't sure if Pepper even wanted to see his face. "Think those hormones have calmed down yet?"

Bruce shrugged. "I guess you could go see," he said, hoping that Tony would. He hated being caught in the middle of conflicts like this, but more than anything he hated seeing Tony and Pepper take a step backward after how hard it had been to get to where they were now. Arguments and conflicts were inevitable, but he just hadn't expected one—a rather serious one, at least—to happen to soon.

"I guess," Tony agreed almost grudgingly. This part always sucked, the initial talking after a fight. He stood up after giving Bruce's hand a squeeze, but before he could walk away Bruce had stood up and wrapped his arms around him.

"I'm sorry," Bruce murmured against Tony's ear, "I didn't mean to hurt you. Neither of us did." He pulled back slightly, meeting Tony's eyes and giving him the best smile he could manage. Tony didn't respond with anything but a brief kiss, and for Bruce that was enough.

Tony patted Bruce's shoulder before silently leaving the room. The walk to the bedroom wasn't very far, so he didn't have a whole lot of time to gather his thoughts or words before he was standing in front of the closed door. Maybe it was better that way. Pepper probably didn't want to hear a speech, but if either of them was going to do most of the talking, Tony thought it should be her.

He gave a few quick raps on the door, but when there wasn't a reply Tony figured it would be more productive to just open it. "Pep?" he said carefully, just to be sure he wouldn't get anything thrown at him. "Can I come in?"

There was a pause, and then Pepper's quiet answer of "sure."

The room was dim when Tony entered, and most of it was due to how Pepper must have told Jarvis to tint the expansive wall of windows that overlooked the city skyline. Privacy was often a rare luxury for those who lived in such an ostentatious home, and though Tony often took advantage of the bedroom's tinted windows for other purposes, he could understand why Pepper didn't want the world looking in. She was sitting in the center of the bed with her head turned towards the window, and the way she was curled up to herself just made her look so _small._ Despite how many years they'd spent by each other's sides and how many times he'd seen her nearly at her worst, Tony was still always struck by how strange it was to see her when she wavered.

"So," Tony started, forcing the word out because it just felt strange to walk towards her in silence. "We've already had the discussion about how I've been an ass, I haven't cared enough, blah, blah, blah. So how about you tell me everything that's going on so I don't make an ass out of myself again?"

Pepper would have cracked a smile at the self-depreciating comment, but she wasn't really feeling it at the moment. "It's not about you being an ass," she said, toying with the corner of the pillow she'd pulled over her stomach. Covering up like that seemed to be a habit of hers lately, and both Tony and Bruce had noticed.

"Then what is it about?" Tony asked. "I mean, after everything that happened I really, for the life of me, don't know why you would keep something like this from me." After all the things Pepper had said about wanting him to be involved, he was suddenly questioning how and what she meant.

"I wasn't trying to shut you out by not telling you," Pepper said, keeping her gaze trained on the bed sheets even as Tony shifted closer beside her. "I was trying to keep you. It just took so long to get to where we are, and I thought that if I told you about the complications that it would just… push you away, or you'd be… relieved, or something." She said the words as steadily as she could, and for the most part she was successful. Not looking directly at Tony seemed to help.

Tony blinked in astonishment. Well, she was just full of surprises today. "What?" He could feel about a million other questions scratching at the edge of his mind, but he told himself to keep it simple for now so she would talk. "Relieved? About complications? God, Pep, I know my brain works differently than a lot of people, but that's…"

"Awful." Pepper finished the sentence for him. She almost cracked a humorless smile, just so the remark didn't seem so cynical, but it didn't feel like the right time. "I know. I hate that I even thought that about you. It's just… it was so hard in the beginning, and I guess I thought that if something happened because of the complications… that you'd be relieved that you wouldn't have to deal with it anymore."

It definitely sounded a lot worse when she said it out loud, Pepper thought. She was beginning to question her decision to tell him all of this, even though it certainly felt like the words were coming out on their own without her consent.

Tony was just doing his best to control his facial expression, because his thoughts were a whole other issue, and he really didn't want it to show. Pepper had actually _thought_ that about him? It made him almost sick to his stomach—not her, but the notion that he had acted that terribly, that cold.

"Okay, well… first of all," Tony began, figuring it was better to talk than to let her words fester and make them both feel worse. "There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't care. I mean… that's our kid. Which was terrifying, and still is terrifying now. And, God, I know I can be a douche, but I can't be _that_ bad." That remark actually earned him a glance and a small smile from Pepper, and he reached out to touch her cheek. "It's you, Pep. It's always you. I can't not care about _you._ "

Pepper felt her cheek warm under Tony's hand, and the same gentle heat curled through the rest of her body and resulted in a few tiny flutters in her stomach. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner," she said softly, leaning her head against Tony's palm.

"Apology accepted. I suppose." Tony smiled a little bit; the admission had come a lot easier than he expected. Maybe he hadn't forgiven her complete for shutting him out for so long, but he could at least accept it like the adult that he was. "At least you had Bruce. That makes me feel a little better."

"Even though we made out behind your back?" Pepper's smile turned just the slightest bit smug.

"Well, I guess if that's what it took…" Tony joked in return. "Can't say I mind now."

They both smiled and laughed quietly, and Pepper was a little amazed at just how quickly the mood had changed. Usually it took hours of painful silence or yelling or sarcastic defense mechanisms before her and Tony ever figured anything out—she didn't see how this situation was too different, but she decided not to question it and accept that maybe imminent parenthood had softened both of them.

Tony had scooted closer on the bed after they'd fallen quiet, his gaze and hand having dropped to Pepper's stomach as he mulled over everything that had just happened. "So are you gonna tell me what these complications actually are?" he asked, fingers tracing absent, gentle patterns over the curve of her stomach. "Or do I have to guess?"

The comfort and calm that Pepper had previously been feeling quickly moved over to make room for some tension, but she actually tried to fight it this time instead of letting it take over completely. He wasn't accusing her, she assured herself, he was just asking, and he deserved the respect of being given an answer. "Um… honestly, I don't really know a whole lot of medical specifics or anything," she said with a small sigh, and it really was the truth. "All I know I that it hurts, and it's not normal."

That explanation wasn't entirely satisfying for Tony, but he didn't pry or protest. This wasn't a project or a mystery that he could pull apart, decipher, and put back together again; this was Pepper, and he couldn't tinker with her. "And the baby?" So he just asked that, figuring it was the logical next step in a conversation like this one.

"Like I said… she's fine, as far as I know," Pepper said again, but clearly Tony wanted or needed to hear it. "She's small," she added, trying to give him any kind of information, "but the doctor said not to worry about that right now."

Tony looked up at Pepper's eyes, considering the information before he looked back down at her middle. Well, that made sense, at least. Everyone was different, obviously, but Pepper really hadn't grown a whole lot during her pregnancy and he'd been wondering why. A small—maybe too small—baby was one explanation, but he really had no idea. Biology had never been his area. "When are you going to the doctor again?"

"In about a week."

"I'm going with you this time."

"Okay." Pepper felt herself deflate with relief at just how easy that was. She was sure that tensions would tighten again after that appointment, just because she had an idea of what to expect, but if Tony's current demeanor was anything to go by maybe things would turn out better than she thought.

There wasn't much left to say after that if the almost-awkward silence was any indication, but for the moment Tony was fine with the information he'd gotten. More questions would come later, he was sure, but he could tell that it was an exhausting topic for Pepper and he didn't want to make it worse than it already was. "Just, uh… keep me in the loop from now on, okay?" He needed to confirm that for some kind of conclusion, at least. "I kinda love you, you know."

"Yeah?" Pepper said the word with a smile in her voice and on her lips, and she extended a hand to tuck away a few strands of Tony's flyaway hair. "Well, I guess I kinda love you, too."

"I guess I can live with that." Before Pepper had a chance to respond to Tony's snark, he had crawled closer on the bed and pressed his lips firmly against hers. The motion wasn't completely unexpected, but Pepper still had to give herself a second to absorb what was happening before she completely gave in to the kiss. For the first time in a long while, there wasn't anything that felt remotely wrong about this—well, maybe "wrong" wasn't the right term, but as much as she was on board with the whole polyamory thing there had been a tiny, barely conceivable part of her that felt like she was betraying Bruce whenever she kissed Tony, or vice versa. Not this time, though. This time finally felt like she knew it should, and there wasn't an ounce of protest in her when Tony took her by the shoulders and rolled them down against the bed.

They'd ended up somewhere in the middle of the mound of pillows and blankets, Tony basically on top of Pepper with one of his legs between both of hers. His lips had migrated to the delicate skin of Pepper's neck in the process, and he earned what sounded like a gentle whimper out of her as he grazed her skin with his teeth and shifted his leg to create some friction where she definitely wanted it.

"Tease," Pepper scolded lightly, almost breathlessly, as she slid her hands under Tony's shirt and up his back.

"Some things never change," Tony murmured in return, his lips purposefully brushing against that sensitive spot at the corner of Pepper's jaw just below her ear, and he could feel the shiver that went through her as a result. Her nails dug into his back in retaliation, and it didn't take much thought for both of them to realize that removing Tony's shirt was the logical next step.

Tony took his sweet time with tossing his shirt aside, kneeling above Pepper for a few extra seconds to give her time to appreciate the view. He could tell she was trying to look indifferent with that typical "quit your vain antics and get on with it" look, but even Pepper's poker face wasn't skilled enough to hide the way her eyes wandered from his face down to his broad chest, across his tight and defined stomach, and finally traced the deep V of muscle that disappeared below the waist of his jeans.

"Oh." Tony had just bent down over Pepper again when he heard the single syllable, and he stifled a chuckle under his breath as he looked over his shoulder to find Bruce standing in the doorway. He couldn't quite hold back the grin though, not when he took in Bruce's wide eyes and slightly flushed skin (whether that was from embarrassment or arousal, Tony didn't know, but he certainly hoped it was the latter).

"Took you long enough, Banner," Tony chastised, rolling off of Pepper for the moment to give his boyfriend some equal exposure. "I was starting to think we might have to go on without you."

"Well, you've been in here for a while, and I was getting a little lonely out there, so…" Bruce shrugged, and a tiny smile began to twitch at the corners of his mouth. "I wanted to come in and make sure you two are okay."

"We worked it out." Pepper pulled herself up to lean back on her elbows, locking eyes with Bruce.

"I see that." Bruce licked his lips, shifting on his feet as he looked between the two of them. Yeah, it definitely seemed like they'd worked it out, especially when he looked at the hardness clearly straining against Tony's pants. The way the man was seated offered the impression that he _wanted_ Bruce to notice it, and that was confirmed with the next question.

"So are you just gonna stand there and watch?" Tony asked, and Pepper turned her head and rolled her eyes. "Cause this'll be way more fun with a third interest factor."

Bruce thought about commenting on Tony's use of the term "interest factor," but quickly decided against it in favor of considering the more pressing topic. The fact that he even had to think about it actually felt silly, somehow—this was an opportunity anyone (read: Tony or Pepper) would have jumped on immediately, but even after how much the three of them had fooled around in the past few weeks, he still found himself worrying about how the Other Guy would react. However, there hadn't been any problems on that end yet, and the way Tony and Pepper were looking at him sparked so much heat under his skin that Bruce really couldn't find a good reason to not be a part of whatever was about to unfold.


	12. 30 Weeks

"Well… I guess the whole 'taking it slow' thing didn't really work out, did it?" Bruce was the first to actually form a coherent sentence that morning, and given the way Tony and Pepper were still panting even after they'd broken apart and sank back into the bed, it seemed likely that he might be the last. He caught Tony in his arms as the man rolled backwards, smiling at the lack of motor skills in the action as he pressed a light kiss to the sweat-damp skin of Tony's shoulder.

"We made it a few weeks," Pepper replied, essentially waving off Bruce's comment on her way to push her hair out of her face. "A few weeks counts as slow."

"A few weeks counts as slow if you only have sex once," Bruce countered with a grin, but he really couldn't make anyone believe that he minded.

"Not necessarily." Pepper shrugged to the best of her ability, looking over Tony's lump of a body to find Bruce's gaze. "We're just… making up for lost time." And they were, they definitely were. She knew that the 'taking it slow' comment would come back to bite her in the ass after their first time a week ago, but the fact that they were barely awake before they were on top and inside of each other again that morning pushed her to believe that it was really water under the bridge by now.

Tony must have agreed, because he grunted into a pillow before he forced himself to roll over and consequently press himself firmly against Bruce's chest again. "Ah, fuck," he sighed, rubbing a hand over his still-flushed face. "Does it really matter?"

His breathless comment earned some quiet laughter out of the other two, and Bruce ran his fingers through Tony's ruffled hair before setting his arm over his boyfriend's bare torso. No, Bruce supposed, it didn't matter. What mattered was what they had right here and right now—the closeness, intimacy and easy comfort of just being there tangled up in each other without any need for words. This was the kind of thing he'd only ever wanted, and luckily he'd found it with Tony, but he knew he'd found so much more when his skin warmed as Pepper took his hand and rested her head on Tony's chest after pulling the sheets around herself.

Yeah, this was it. Maybe they hadn't gotten off to the easiest start, and maybe they were just reaching the honeymoon period now when most people would have had that long ago, and despite the hardships they still had to face in the outside world it was moments like this that made everything worth it.

"You know, Pep," Tony started, and his raspy voice broke Bruce out of his thoughts. "I have a burning question that you really need to answer."

Pepper felt a little smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth, but she managed to push it away until her suspicions were actually confirmed. She tilted her head to look up at Tony, eyebrows raised. "Yes?"

Tony moved to shove his arm underneath her and get it around her back, pulling her towards him so he could lean in and get his face within inches of hers. "Who's better?" he stage-whispered, and even though Pepper expected him to flash a grin, he said it with a completely straight face.

Pepper blinked, and there was a beat of silence before she huffed out a quiet laugh. Figures. The expression on Tony's face was more ridiculous than anything else, and she leaned forward an inch to peck him on the lips before, with a matter-of-fact tone, she said, "I'm not answering that."

"Come on. You have to. It's me, right? It's gotta be me."

Pepper broke the eye contact to exchange a glance with Bruce, and inhaled a deep breath to keep herself from laughing. "No, I'm not giving either of you the satisfaction of answering that question," she repeated, but she wasn't completely successful in hiding her amusement.

"You mean you don't want to give _me_ the satisfaction," Tony corrected as he squeezed her waist, and he heard an amused yet exasperated sigh out of Bruce on his other side.

"I'm not giving you any satisfaction," Pepper replied, "and Bruce—"

"'And Bruce' what? And Bruce is better?" Tony interrupted, and he was too focused on Pepper's expression to see if he was right that he didn't even notice Bruce's snort of laughter behind him. "Okay. Okay, I see how it is."

Pepper rolled her eyes, partly at Tony and partly to keep from looking at Bruce, because she knew she'd lose it if she did. "I never said—"

"It's because he's hung like a fucking horse, isn't it?" That comment knocked them both into shocked silence for a minute, and Pepper could see Bruce turn a vibrant shade of red in the corner of her eye. "Because I would like to remind you, Miss Potts, that it was _this_ also decently-sized dick that put a baby in your uterus. Remember that?"

Pepper snorted and pulled herself up to sit properly, squeezing Bruce's hand before she let go to give Tony's chest a reassuring pat. "Vividly," she said, reaching over to rub Bruce's shoulder as he shoved his face into a pillow. "Now, I'm just going to exit this conversation before it gets any worse and take a shower before we go down to the doctor's to check on that baby you put in me."

"Oh, shit, yeah," Tony said when he realized, "when is that again?"

"11:30." Pepper forced herself off the bed and onto her feet, not bothering to cover up with the sheet since the bathroom was only a short walk across the room. "And it's already half past 10, so you and your decently-sized dick need to get up so we're not late." She flashed one last grin before she turned around and wandered away, still quietly snickering to herself.

"I can't believe you just used the term 'hung like a horse' to describe me," Bruce said once Pepper was out of earshot, his voice muffled by the pillow he still had over his face.

Tony chuckled, rolling back over to pull the pillow away and brace his arms on either side of the other man. "My euphemisms only ever speak the truth," he replied easily, leaning down to kiss Bruce quickly yet thoroughly. "Although, I gotta say, I was only ever expecting to have to compete with the Other Guy in that department."

Bruce groaned loudly, but the sound was cut short when Tony kissed him again. "I hate you."

"Uh huh." Tony dragged his hand down Bruce's side, and pressed his wide grin into the other man's neck instead. "Love you too, buddy."

 **###**

After Tony and Bruce had wasted another 20 minutes by laying around in kissing lazily in bed, Pepper managed to pull Tony up and away so he could get dressed and be halfway responsible and punctual that morning. As much as she would have liked to sit there and just watch them for a little longer, she didn't want to be late, and she wasn't going to let Tony get out of going with her again.

However, he actually seemed fairly proactive this time, and at least he hadn't complained during the drive over to the doctor's office. If anything Pepper was the one complaining a little bit, just because she'd never liked doctor's appointments and she definitely didn't appreciate having to go so frequently. It was strange to think that the tables had turned, but Pepper could see that Tony was finally, really _trying,_ and she wasn't going to do or say anything that might jeopardize that.

"You're probably confusing the hell out of this poor doctor, you know," Tony said after they'd been waiting in the small examination room for a few minutes. He was wandering around the small area to looking at all the different things lining the walls, and Pepper could tell that doctor's offices always made him jittery.

Pepper's eyes followed him as he paced, and for the moment she gave up on reading the sea of emails that had loaded into her phone's inbox. "What makes you say that?"

"I dunno," Tony shrugged, looking back at her over his shoulder. "Last time you were here with Bruce, now you're here with me. You should bring Happy next time just to see her reaction."

Pepper smiled a little bit and rolled her eyes. "I'm sure she's seen far stranger things, and I doubt she's too concerned with the people who come with me to appointments," she reasoned, looking back down at her phone. "And Happy would be asking too many questions, he'd drive all of us crazy."

"True. Bring Rhodey, then."

"If you keep pacing like that, I just might."

Tony stopped in his tracks, and Pepper smiled warmly when he looked over at her again. He laughed quietly, almost self-consciously, as he walked back towards the plastic chairs in the corner of the room and took a seat next to her. "These places always make me a little jumpy," he explained with half a smile, and Pepper murmured a gentle 'I know' in response. "So, are you, uh… you're feeling okay, right?" he asked, carefully placing a hand on her stomach to try and be supportive. "I mean, you haven't really mentioned anything since last week, and…"

"Sometimes it helps to not talk about it very much," Pepper explained, sliding her hand over Tony's to give his fingers a squeeze. She didn't mean to brush off his concern, and she hoped that's not how Tony took it—after all, he had a right to be worried and nosy after knowing that Pepper had withheld information about their child from him for months. She still felt guilty about it, but that wasn't going to do anything for them now. "Mind over matter kind of thing, I guess. But I've been okay, for the most part."

Tony's expression visibly softened with relief, and he wrapped his fingers around Pepper's in return. "Okay," he said, and he leaned over to kiss her temple just before the door opened.

"Good morning," Dr. Montgomery greeted them cheerily, setting a small pile of papers on the desk near the chairs. "Nice to see you again. Although I have to say, I was expecting Dr. Banner to tag along again," she said with a quick smile.

"Yeah, I guess he decided to let the real father come along this time," Tony said, and Pepper nudged him in the side before he flashed a winning smile and held out his hand for the doctor to shake. "Tony Stark. Pleasure to meet you, finally."

"You as well." The doctor shook his hand, and turned her gaze back to Pepper a second later. "How have you been feeling, Pepper? Has anything changed since I last saw you?"

Pepper took a second to think of how to answer while the other two in the room turned their attention onto her. Part of her thought it would be easier if Tony wasn't there to hear all of this, but the firmness and warmth of his renewed grip on her hand dispelled most of that concern as she looked back at the doctor. "The pain has been getting a little worse as time goes on, but I suppose that makes sense," she said, settling on being honest without sounding too grave. "But I'm all right, I think. I'm handling it."

The doctor nodded as Pepper talked, looking down to flip through some of the papers on the desk after she finished. "Okay," she said, setting the papers back down. "I don't like that you're in more pain, but you're right that it's to be expected. I also have the results of those tests you had done a couple weeks back, but I'd like to take a look at the baby first before we discuss that," she explained calmly, "sound okay?"

Tony and Pepper exchanged a vaguely worried glance, but Pepper ultimately nodded in the affirmative. She didn't necessarily like the sound of that, but she could very well be assuming too many things without hearing the doctor out first. She could only hope that Tony was thinking the same thing as she stood up to take a place on the examination table and got settled, hoping this part would be over soon so they could get to the topic that was really concerning her.

It was only a matter of minutes before the monitor lit up with the greyscale image of the baby, and Pepper reached out to take Tony's hand when she heard him stand up and walk closer to her. A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth, but her mind had already flip-flopped back to the worries for it to really mean anything.

Tony could easily see the waver in Pepper's expression, so he squeezed her hand tightly in an effort to make her feel a little more comfortable. The doctor's words had set him on edge as well, but after the rollercoaster of emotions the past few months had been, he was determined to not let himself react too drastically. "She's really cute," he said softly, watching the screen for a minute before he looked back at Pepper and smiled encouragingly. "Definitely our kid."

"Mhmm," Pepper murmured, and for the moment Tony's gentle voice and reassurance helped her feel like this all was normal, the way it was supposed to be. Having Tony there with her this time felt right, and she was done wishing that they'd gotten to this point sooner. They were here now, and that was what mattered—maybe it would even be enough to her to feel like it was all okay. So she gripped Tony's hand more firmly and turned her eyes back to the doctor, drawing in a breath. "So?"

"Well…" Dr. Montgomery hesitated before she continued, and Pepper couldn't tell if the neutral expression on her face meant that the news was good or bad. "She looks okay given the situation, but as we know, that isn't ideal." She examined the monitor for a minute longer before shutting it off and gesturing towards Pepper and she took a few steps back towards the desk and chairs. "Come here, let's talk."

If Pepper had been worried before, now she was a whole new level of anxious as she gathered herself and went to go take her place back in the chair beside Tony. It was obvious that the news wasn't great, but all she could hope was that it wasn't too devastating. Tony was stiff beside her, but she could tell he was trying to appear less anxious and more casual as he stretched his arm out to rest on the back of Pepper's chair, his hand brushing her shoulder as they waited for the doctor to continue.

"So I've had a look over your test results, and what I've gathered is confirmation to what I've suspected," the doctor started calmly, clearly able to see the tension drawn into the couple in front of her. "To put it bluntly, your body is hating everything about this. It hasn't adapted well, and because of that, your baby isn't thriving the way she should be at this point in the pregnancy."

Pepper clenched her jaw in an attempt to keep her expression from wavering. "So what's going to happen to her?" she asked, although she wasn't sure if she wanted to hear the answer.

"That depends." The doctor took one last look at the papers before pushing them away in favor of looking directly at Pepper instead. "A pregnancy like yours comes with a long list of risks, both for you and your child. Normally, in a situation where the baby was thriving but the mother wasn't, I would suggest delivering early to serve both of them well. However, in your case, neither of you are thriving, which doesn't leave you with a win-win scenario however it goes.

With the way your body is reacting, you're at a very high risk of pre-term delivery; that would be good for _you,_ but your daughter isn't where she should be developmentally, so there's no saying how well she wouldn't or wouldn't be when she's born. On the flip side, she'd probably do much better with more time inside, but I'm worried about your body's ability to handle a full-term pregnancy." She stopped after that, wanting to give Pepper and Tony a minute to process before she went any further.

Pepper, however, didn't know if she _could_ process all of that. Sure, she'd known since the beginning that this wasn't going to be easy, and even as things got worse and worse as time passed, she had never expected to be faced with something like this—something so uncertain, so subjective. She placed a hand on Tony's knee and gripped hard, just to try and stop the shaking. "So now what?" she asked, doing her best to keep her voice steady. "I mean—do I have a choice in any of this, or do I just… wait?"

"You just wait," Dr. Montgomery answered, and the tone of her voice spoke volumes about how much she hated to say it. "Your body and your baby are going to do what they're going to do. I don't believe we're in any place to make a judgment about what's best for either of you, because whatever choice you make will do well for one at the detriment of the other. So you wait, and I'll keep an eye on you, and we'll see what happens." She offered a smile, but Pepper was too busy staring at the table and trying to digest everything to see it. "Which brings me to the point that you _need_ to rest from now on out. No more work until you have that baby, whenever that'll be—staying on bed rest without as much stress will reduce the risks at least a little bit. Okay?"

The doctor waited for Pepper to respond, but the confirmation never seemed to come. So Tony took over and nodded, making eye contact with Dr. Montgomery before he turned his attention back to Pepper, gently nudging her shoulder to try and get her to respond to _something._ When they didn't seem to be getting anywhere and there wasn't anything else left to explain, the doctor moved to gather her papers and stand up, intending to give them some privacy.

"As worried as you are right now, I want both of you to remember that even though you feel like this might end badly, it has just as much of a chance of ending up completely fine," she said reassuringly, offering another warm, encouraging smile. "If you need anything, don't hesitate to call me."

She exited the room then, leaving Tony and Pepper to their own devices in an almost uncomfortable silence. For the life of him, Tony could not tell in the slightest what Pepper was thinking or feeling—usually her face gave it away at least a little bit, but she was so stone cold and still that it actually scared him a bit.

"Pep?" he said gently, resting one arm around her shoulders while he took the other to lightly touch her cheek. "Honey, will you look at me, please?"

Pepper didn't comply, but Tony was vaguely relieved when she blinked and looked at least somewhat responsive. It looked very much like she was trying too hard to keep it together, but for whom Tony didn't know—there wasn't anyone else she needed to stay calm for, and he would have liked to think that after everything they'd gone through recently that she wouldn't want to shut him out anymore. But he'd known her too long and too well to fall for any of that; she was holding it together for herself, because Tony knew how much she couldn't stand to be weak.

"Why is this happening to us?" Finally, she spoke, and her voice was so small and so broken that it almost made Tony feel physical pain.

"I don't know." That was the only thing he could think to say that was truly and completely honest. "I've always been a magnet for bad luck, I guess," he added, and he tried to smile as he tucked a stray lock of hair behind Pepper's ear.

"It's not fair," Pepper continued, squeezing her eyes shut as she let out a shallow, shaky breath. "Just, after everything, I—I just wanted this to be normal, and it's not—it's just not _fair,_ Tony." Her composure broke then, and Tony could feel his heart physically shatter as he watched her heave a sob. He'd only seen her cry a handful of times before, but every time he did it felt like something inside him withered away and died; Tony had seen his fair share of terrible things during his years, but few of them even came close to watching somebody as strong, unwavering, and _perfect_ as Pepper Potts break.

But she was right—it wasn't fair. Nothing was ever fair when it came to them, and Tony was sure that Bruce would say and feel the same thing if he were there. But as much as he wanted to fix this, go back in time and turn things around and be better and just be _there_ for her so maybe this moment wouldn't feel as helpless, Tony couldn't. So he just held her while she shook apart, letting her tears stain his shirt as he did his best to murmur gentle condolences and hope that maybe, just maybe, it would all be fine.

After another several minutes, Pepper finally seemed to start to calm down. She wasn't better by any means, but at least calmer, and that was slightly easier for Tony to handle. "I'm sorry," she said quietly, but before Tony could deny that she continued. "I just can't do this. I can't."

"Yeah we can." Tony didn't waste any time in responding, because staying silent for too long would just let her slip further away, and he wasn't going to put all of this on her shoulders. He was a part of this too, and he was done avoiding responsibility. "It's us. We've made it through some pretty rough stuff, I think we can… figure this one out." He didn't know where the hell all this sudden optimism was coming from, because it definitely wasn't in his nature to have his sights set on the best case scenario, but he knew that the inevitable crash would come later. "You wanna go home?" he asked before she could devolve into a puddle of hopelessness again. "Come on, let's go home."

Pepper nodded, pulling back from Tony's shoulder to wipe her cheeks so she didn't look like such a mess. Tony leaned in to kiss her forehead before he helped her up, and he slung a supportive arm around her waist as they made their way out of the office and back home where they really needed to be.

 **###**

The ride home was spent mostly in silence, both of them wrapped up in their own thoughts to really want to say much. Pepper spent most of it trying to keep herself calm and reverse her emotional reaction—she'd let her feelings get the best of her, and she always hated when that happened. It was happening much more often lately too, and it was just another thing that made her even more anxious for this pregnancy to be over.

At least Tony seemed to be holding it together better than she was, but Pepper knew that would only last for so long. She just hoped that he wouldn't fall back on the same coping mechanisms he'd been using for years—sleepless nights in the workshop, empty bottles of alcohol strewn across the desk and the floor. Things were better now that Bruce was around, but there was no telling how he would deal with this either.

Even so, she resolved herself to try to not worry for now, as much as she wanted to or felt she should. Tony's solid presence beside her was somewhat of a help as they made their way up back to the penthouse, and by the time they got there Pepper felt like she was at least halfway on her way to being back to normal. Not okay, but at the very least, less of a mess.

Although, when the elevator let them off on their floor, she definitely wasn't expecting to be greeted by anyone besides Bruce. Rhodey, Natasha, Happy, and Clint were all sitting in various places around the living room, and when Pepper looked to Tony for some kind of explanation, he just made a very bad attempt at shrugging like he didn't know.

"Hi?" Pepper said curiously, looking around the room.

"Hi." Bruce stood up and walked towards where Tony and Pepper were standing in the foyer with a wide smile on his face, and he leaned in to peck each of them on the lips when he reached them. "Welcome back, how'd it go?" There was a pause, and he seemed to get the hint as he ran his hand down Pepper's arm.

"We'll tell you later," Tony said quietly, and Bruce nodded, deciding not to push it.

"Do my eyes deceive me, or are you _actually_ having a Stark kid?" Their small gathering was interrupted by Rhodey, and the large grin on his face was enough to prompt an actual smile out of Pepper. He held out his arms to give her a hug, and she happily complied. "It's good to see you again, Pepper."

"James," she said fondly, leaving a hand on his arm after the embrace ended. "I thought you were based in Miami until the end of the year?"

"Yeah, well… I was supposed to be," Rhodey replied with an indifferent shrug. "Wasn't much happening down there though, so I managed to sneak out a few months early. Plus, I kind of had to see this to believe it," he added, gesturing towards her stomach.

"What, you didn't think we were capable of making a kid?" Tony butted in, punching his friend lightly in the arm before he patted Rhodey's back. "Because, let me tell you…"

"I just always thought she had enough to handle with you," Rhodey said before Tony could go any further, and the banter continued as Pepper rolled her eyes and turned back to Bruce and the rest of the people in the area.

"So what exactly is all this about?" Pepper asked, her shoulders relaxing fractionally under Bruce's arm as he wrapped it around her while they made their way towards an empty sofa.

"You mean we have to have a reason to gather in your apartment like a bunch of cattle?" Clint deadpanned from where he was stretched across the opposite sofa, but he sent a little smirk in Pepper's direction before he took a sip of the beer in his hand.

"I know, she sounds so thrilled to see us," Natasha added teasingly.

"Not what I meant." It felt strange to be smiling so much so soon, but if being around the others was getting her mind off the day's earlier events, Pepper would take it. "Usually I like to know when we're having guests," she said, turning her head to give Bruce a fond yet pointed glance.

"Well…" Bruce shrugged, and Pepper could see the corner of his mouth twitch into that tiny little smile she always loved. "Your birthday is in a couple weeks, so Tony and I thought we'd organize a little gathering."

Pepper raised an eyebrow and lifted a hand to fix one of Bruce's stray curls. "Really?" she asked, "a couple weeks seems so far in advance, usually you're so particular."

"Fine. You got me." Bruce took Pepper's hand before she could ruffle his hair like he knew she was going to, and laced their fingers together. "I know you said no to a baby shower… or at least a traditional one… so this is your low-key baby shower disguised as a low-key birthday party. Or I guess it could work as both." He shrugged again, and leaned over to kiss her cheek to hide his somewhat sheepish smile. "So happy early birthday, darling."

Pepper felt her skin and heart warm at Bruce's words, and she didn't really know what to say in response. All of this was just so incredibly sweet, and after the emotional rollercoaster the day had already been, she wouldn't have been surprised if her feelings got the best of her again (they didn't, luckily, because she at least had enough self-composure to prevent something that ridiculous from happening).

Still, as sweet as it was and as content and Bruce looked, she couldn't shake the thought that it might all be for nothing. She hated the idea that she and Tony would have to tell him about the appointment, and she hated the knowledge that she would have to see that perfect, kind smile of his fail.

But they weren't there yet, and Pepper knew that if she was going to face this and actually deal with it, she would have to take it one day, one minute, one second at a time. So in that second, she managed to suppress the fear and worry and denial and leaned in to kiss him sweetly instead, ignoring the few pairs of eyes that were probably on them.

"I'm just impressed that nobody let the cat out of the bag on this one," Tony put in, having walked over to perch on the armrest of the couch beside Pepper, smoothing his hand down her hair after her and Bruce broke apart. "I guess we can trust some of you after all."

"Says the guy with the biggest mouth in the room," Rhodey commented offhandedly, and Bruce snorted in amusement as Tony turned to throw back the snark.

Most of the afternoon continued just like that, in a comfortable atmosphere with familiar banter and familiar faces. Pepper never had very much faith in the notion that human contact could make a terrible situation seem less so, but maybe… well, maybe she was wrong. It didn't change what was happening, and the occasional casual comment from one of the others about her soon-to-be child still hurt a bit, but she was far from feeling completely hopeless. That would change at some point, she was sure, but for now Tony was right. They could handle it. Maybe they couldn't _fix_ it, but they could handle it, much like they always handled everything else.

Sure, she thought, it'd be fine. It had to be.


	13. 34 Weeks Part One

When they told Bruce, he didn't take it well.

It was the day after the appointment that Tony and Pepper sat him down and told him everything, no sugarcoating, no cover-ups. Tony wanted to wait a couple extra days before saying anything just to have more time to digest the information himself, but Pepper had shut that idea down in the middle of the night when Bruce was out like a light and they were sleepless. She was done hiding things, she'd said. The situation with Tony was a lesson learned about how shutting one person out was damaging to all three, and besides, she was fairly positive that Bruce would notice when Tony started going to the office every day instead of Pepper.

So they told him, and it was horrible, but they knew it wouldn't be easy. His initial reaction was to be expected—the broken expression, the questions, the fear. Tony and Pepper were familiar with those reactions, just because they were same things they were already feeling. It was the other part that they weren't prepared for: the unnerving quiet, the tension in his muscles, and how whenever he touched Pepper it seemed too careful rather than just gentle, as if he was afraid he'd break her more than she already was.

But then he started doing his _Bruce Thing,_ as Tony called it. So after a few days of what could really only be considered brooding, he went back to acting like it was all fine and that he wasn't terrified, even though they all knew better.

It continued on like that for a month, during which the three of them tiptoed around the obvious subject and even each other, until Pepper found herself laid up in a hospital bed for a day and they were back to being able to cut the tension like a wire. (The hospital thing wasn't even necessary, Pepper thought. They thought it was labor when she knew it wasn't and that it was just the pain, but she ended up there anyway. At least the meds were nice.)

Back to basics, and back to six more excruciatingly long weeks of bed rest for Pepper, if everything went as planned.

That morning wasn't too different from all the others. Pepper watched the two of them bustle around to get ready for the day while she stayed slumped in bed, wishing she was doing the same instead of knowing that she'd be left alone with her own thoughts until that evening. Usually she was comforted by the knowledge that Bruce's work at the tower was leisurely and unrestricted so he could be with her when she needed it, but today he actually had pressing engagements and she wasn't selfish enough to tell him to stay home.

Well, she didn't really _need_ him to stay with her the other times either, but Tony had taken over running SI and having Bruce there made her days a little less lonely. Maybe it wasn't entirely for her sake, though. Maybe she thought that having Bruce with her would show him that she was fine and he didn't need to worry, because no matter how good he was at shoving everything under a resigned mask and a gentle smile, Pepper knew he was more or less in a constant state of concern.

"You'll call me if you need anything, right?" Or Bruce _was_ good at hiding it, until that morning when he actually had to leave the tower completely, and now it seemed like all of his bottled up worries were spilling over into a glass that was far too small. "Seriously. Anything. If you need _anything_ just call me and I'll be here."

Pepper sighed for what was probably the hundredth time that day already. "I'll be fine, Bruce," she said, and she was pretty sure the times she'd said that had reached one hundred and one. "Do me a favor and don't spend the whole day obsessively checking your phone?"

"You know I will. Tony's gotten me into the habit." Bruce turned around to look at her from his place in front of the mirror that he'd been using to tie his tie. It was nothing short of a haphazard job, and Pepper snorted and gestured him over. He complied with a sheepish smile, and sat on the edge of the bed beside her to let her skilled hands tie the knot for him. "Uh, been a while since I've worn one of these."

"I can tell." Pepper looked up to meet his eyes and give him a smile as she mindlessly fixed his tie, the years of doing the same thing for Tony showing in her skill. "You should wear them more often though," she continued, fixing his collar and smoothing his shirt, "makes you look extra handsome."

Bruce's smile twitched, and he looked down to hide the bashfulness and take Pepper's hand into his own. "I wish I didn't have to go," he said softly, his eyes following the movement as he laced their fingers and set their joined hands carefully on Pepper's swollen stomach.

"I don't," Pepper said easily. "NYU asked you to do this seminar months ago and you've been so excited that you haven't stopped talking about it since. Plus, you know what an endorsement from these people will do for your research if they like what they hear."

"I know," Bruce sighed, and it was the same sound he always uttered when he knew she was right, which she almost always was. "I know, it'll be huge. I just wish it was, I don't know… six weeks from now," he cracked a smile, "so I didn't have to leave you to—"

"—to be completely fine," Pepper finished the sentence for him, using her other hand to tilt his chin up so he'd look at her. "Go give your lecture, and you can tell us all about it tonight when you come home, where I'll still be just _fine_."

Bruce bit down on his bottom lip, chewing it for a moment before his lips curled into a small smile and he conceded. "Okay, okay, I get it," he said, chuckling a little half-heartedly. "You'll be fine. I know you'll be fine. But still, I'm only around the block if you need me… for whatever reason."

"And I'm only a few floors away in the office, so I think I _might_ just be the better option." Tony walked out of the bathroom then, looking considerably more pulled together than he had 20 minutes before when he went in. He'd shaped his beard and slicked his hair, and the way he was dressed in a dark burgundy button-down and black slacks combined with Bruce's dapper suit and tie made Pepper want to keep both of them there to do more than just keep her company. "Come on, Big Guy. I'll drop you off and try to make it back before Pep's secretary gives me a dirty look for being late."

Pepper rolled her eyes. "You realize that you being late also screws up everyone else's schedule, right?"

Tony shrugged as he pulled on his jacket and walked over to the other two. "None of them would have jobs if it wasn't for me. They should be grateful that I show my face around there." He cracked a smile and rested a hand on Bruce's shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.

Bruce just shook his head and chuckled a little bit, patting Tony's hand with the one that wasn't holding Pepper's. "I guess we should get going so you can save face then," he said. He leaned forward to kiss Pepper gently, and he squeezed her hand once more before he stood up.

Tony took his turn next, giving her a kiss that lasted a little longer before mumbling "I'll call you" against her lips. After that he bent over and pressed his lips ever so lightly against her belly, lingering there until he felt a flutter underneath his palm. "Try not to miss me too much in there," he murmured, and he felt Pepper stroke his cheek with her thumb before he pulled back.

Pepper smiled contently at both of them, watching Tony throw his arm over Bruce's shoulders as they turned towards the door. "Good luck today, Bruce," she said sweetly, "go get 'em."

They reluctantly left her behind then, and made their way to the elevator that would take them down to the garage. Once the doors slid shut, Bruce sighed and leaned back against the wall, absently watching the digital numbers as they ticked downwards. Tony looked over at him curiously, stepping closer to bump his shoulder.

"Not getting cold feet, are you?" Tony asked teasingly. "'Cause unfortunately you're not gonna have my pretty face in the audience to help you out if you choke."

Bruce huffed out a dry laugh, tilting his head back against the cool metal of the elevator wall. "I think I'll survive," he said, staying where he was for a delayed moment after the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. "The bigger issue is if I'll even be able to concentrate."

Tony stifled a sigh. There it was, of course, no doubt about it. "For the sake of not sounding like a broken record, I'm not gonna say she'll be fine," he started, and the way Bruce's expression shifted so quickly prompted him to hold up a hand a finish his point. "I'm gonna tell you to calm down, because the more you keep stressing, the more it's gonna stress her out. And she doesn't need to be stressed out right now." He stepped out of the elevator and held out his hand, beckoning for Bruce to take it.

"I know," Bruce agreed, and the admission came in a tone that was almost self-depreciating, like he was kicking himself for still not being okay. "I know. I really do. I just—this is the first day since that appointment that I won't be readily available for her if she needs it, and after last week…" He shrugged, figuring Tony would get the point.

"Last week was a hiccup," Tony said. He'd said that multiple times over the past couple days, thinking that maybe if he said it enough he'd actually believe it. Honestly, he really didn't know how he'd been holding it together so well. "It wasn't even a big deal. Even the doctor said it wasn't anything to worry about, she just needed those meds to get through it that day. And, jeez, Banner, shouldn't it be me who's sick and jittery with worry?" he asked, smiling crookedly as he placed his hands on Bruce's upper arms. "Usually you're the reasonable one."

"It's a weird look on you," Bruce joked in return, "being reasonable like that." He went quiet for a minute after that, relaxing minimally under the warmth and gentle passes of Tony's hands along his arms. He leaned against the car that was behind him and tried to gather his thoughts into some kind of rational order, and push away just how terrified he felt every single day that he was going to lose everything. This was the only thing he'd ever really, obsessively wanted—someone he loved, someone who loved him, a _family._ And he had it all right here. Literally _all_ of it and then some, since somehow he'd found two people instead of one. But of course nothing was ever perfect, not for Bruce. Apparently that just wasn't allowed. "I guess it's just a little scary," he finally said, looking back up at Tony.

"Yeah," Tony agreed, squeezing Bruce's arm. "Yeah, of course it is."

"No, I mean… everything is, you know?" Bruce continued with a shrug, and he didn't know how he was able to say that so casually. "It was scary enough when I realized that I was in love with you. That's not really the kind of thing that happens to me _once,_ and now there's another person who I feel the same way about and that's just… doubly scary."

His lips pulled into that lopsided half-smile that Tony loved, and for the moment both of them felt warm in the brisk air of the garage. Bruce wasn't one to carelessly drop the 'L' word very much, so whenever he said it to Tony, it was a sentiment that Tony always took a moment to rewind and replay in his head a few times until it made him dizzy. Alcohol was always a fine option, but Tony could very easily get drunk on those words alone. "You love her, huh?" he asked with a tiny, fond smile.

"Yeah." Bruce said the word slowly, looking away and nodding to himself like he was trying it out, just to see what it was like to feel those things. Finally he seemed to come to a conclusion, and when he looked back at Tony there was something in his eyes that almost glimmered. "I think I do."

Tony was fairly sure he actually felt his heart swell at Bruce's confession. "Yeah, well…" He grinned and then tilted his head forward to catch Bruce's lips in a kiss, moving their mouths together slowly and sweetly until he needed air. "It's kinda hard not to."

 **###**

It only took about an hour of being alone in the apartment for Pepper to realize that she was done with the traditional bed rest for the day.

Granted, there had already been many days spent alone over the past month, so it wasn't like that day was all too different. But it was, for some reason, and she couldn't seem to shake the itchiness and the restlessness no matter where she was. She'd hopped between the bedroom, the living room, the dining area—nothing seemed to do, so eventually she settled on just leaving altogether. Bruce probably would have blew a gasket if he knew, but by Pepper's logic, she'd already done enough moving around in that apartment alone that one more trip down to the communal lounge really couldn't hurt.

It was a slow trip and her body hated every second of it, but after a few stops and several quiet curses, she made it to the shared living room in the heart of the tower. It wasn't occupied, thankfully, which meant she had a few minutes to cool down after all but flopping onto the couch. (Okay, another thing Bruce would have hated to see her do, but she'd already broken quota for that day so she didn't count it.)

Whoever had been there last left the TV on, but Pepper was too busy sinking into the couch and reveling in the comfort she'd finally found to notice what was playing. She didn't realize how much she missed her freedom until she finally reclaimed it, however she decided not to analyze how nowadays her definition of "freedom" meant sneaking from the apartment to a few floors below.

God, she really needed this baby out of her.

It was a terrible thing to wish for given the situation, but she just wanted her freedom and mobility and most of all her _life_ back. Well, she definitely wouldn't be getting her old life back with a baby in the picture, but at the very least she'd finally be able to properly explore the still-sort-of-new relationship with Tony and Bruce without the outside stresses or worries that came with these _stupid_ complications.

She sighed heavily, and the action startled her out of the daze she must have fallen into. She'd sank deeply into the couch at that point, and for the moment she was a little too focused on trying to soothe the restless flutters in her stomach beneath her hands to notice when the couch dipped beside her.

"Hogging my couch, Potts." Clint lowered himself onto the other end of the sofa, leaning over to set a bottle of beer on the end table before he got comfortable. Pepper had wondered who'd been draining the beer supply when clearly it wasn't Tony, and apparently she'd found the answer. "You think you can just steal a man's couch?"

Pepper turned her head where it was resting on the cushion behind her, and gave Clint a wry smile and a roll of her eyes. "I designed this place, and the 12 percent of it that I own includes the furniture," she snarked in return, "so technically, you're hogging _my_ couch."

That earned an amused snort out of Clint, and he took a sip of his beer. "That whole 12 percent thing is actually legit?"

"No," she said, and almost rolled her eyes again. Please, like she would have let Tony get away with that one. "We went halves. I own a lot of things you've probably taken claim to." There was a beat of hesitation, and she looked back at him curiously. "Wait… how long have you been back? Didn't you just leave on a mission?"

"Nah, I got back about a week ago," Clint replied nonchalantly, putting his feet up on the coffee table. "They're shipping me out in another couple days, though. Where the hell have you been?"

"Confined to that apartment for far too long, apparently." Pepper wanted to sigh in frustration, but she held it back. She just hadn't realized how disconnected she was from the outside world nowadays, and it was actually rather unsettling. "How'd it go?" she asked, trying to get him to talk so she could try to worm her way back into the loop a little bit.

"Lame. Boring. Uneventful. Fucker didn't even put up a fight, honestly, it was a waste of time." Clint shrugged and downed some more of his beer. "Most solo missions are… at least for us normal agents who don't fly around in flashy metal suits. Stark's solo escapades always sound like they give you a damn heart attack," he added with a dry chuckle, eyes flicking back to whatever mindless program was still playing on the TV.

"They do," Pepper agreed, following his gaze. "At least he's cut back on that lately."

"Yeah, I guess all it took was a kid to finally soften him up," Clint joked, looking back at her to flash a grin. His eyes looked over her for a minute, stilling on the hand she still had on her middle. "But speaking of that… shouldn't you be, you know, still confined to that apartment? Didn't you just get out of the hospital?"

"No, I got out of there about a week ago. Where the hell have _you_ been?" Pepper's lips twitched into another small smile as she threw his own comment back at him, and Clint just pulled a face in response. "It was only a one-day stint anyway. But… yes, you're right, I should be upstairs but I was starting to go stir crazy up there and needed a change of scenery. You better not tell on me, Agent Barton," she added, quirking an eyebrow somewhat comically.

"Your secret's safe with me, Miss Potts," Clint replied, waving his beer towards her in an invisible, one-sided toast. He took a swig, pausing for a moment as he blinked. "Still having a shitty time, huh?"

Pepper was a little hesitant to answer, mostly because she didn't know how exactly he knew about the "shitty time" she'd been having or who told him, but when she took a step back and looked at it, she realized that maybe it was more obvious than she thought. "I guess you could say that," she replied vaguely.

Clint seemed to take the hint from her answer that she really didn't want to talk about that particular subject, so he just nodded sympathetically before turning his gaze back to the TV. Pepper also turned her gaze back to the screen when Clint did, grateful that he had dropped the subject. Clint always seemed like a fairly private person himself despite his carefree attitude and wit, and that was something Pepper could respect and relate to.

They stayed like that for quite some time, just lounging on the sofa a few feet apart, quietly watching the TV with some easy conversation sprinkled in between. It was comfortable and refreshing in a way Pepper hadn't expected it to be, and she found herself more than satisfied that she'd gone against protocol that day.

Well, "against protocol" was probably the wrong term. She was still resting and remaining mostly immobile, it was just in a difference place that was far better for her sanity. There wasn't any harm being done, and besides, Clint was fairly good company.

"I'm starving," the archer announced after another run of comfortable silence, and he rolled his head on the back of the couch cushion to look at Pepper. "You hungry?"

Pepper paused to consider. "I could eat," she decided, carefully setting a hand on her stomach when her baby seemed to be particularly restless. "I am eating for two, I suppose," she added, her tone and smile somewhere between dry and sheepish.

"Yeah, pretty sure Banner might get a certain someone to smash me if he finds out I didn't feed you," Clint joked, pulling himself up with the intention of going to raid the kitchen. "Anything sound appetizing?" He turned back to look at her after he stretched out his shoulders and back, and watched her shift to the edge of the seat as if she were going to get up. "Hey, no, I got it. Stay there," he said, tone still light until he saw the odd expression that had consumed her face and stance. "Are you, uh… are you fine, Potts?"

Pepper's body had gone so stiff that she very much appeared like a statue, but it was a stance she took in hopes that it would dull some of the unfamiliar pain that had just rolled through her. This wasn't… it couldn't be. She still had six weeks to go, and despite the doctor's warnings, she'd been doing so _well_ —it just didn't add up. However, the logic and math really didn't seem to be on her side when the pain shot through her abdomen again, and she inhaled sharply. "I don't know," she said, her voice much smaller than she would have liked.

If she'd been paying attention, she would have noticed that most of the color had drained from Clint's face as he cautiously sat down beside her. "This isn't what I think it is, is it?" he asked, not quite sure what to do with himself. He felt like he should do something to help her, but he didn't know where to do with his hands or if any attempt at help would even be welcome. "I mean, that kid isn't supposed to come out for another, like…"

"Six weeks." Pepper finished the sentence for him, and when the words left her mouth she felt the terror properly set in. "Six weeks is pretty early, so… it might not be real. This might not be happening. This kind of stuff happens all the time, right? People think they're going into labor when they're really not—" The sentence ended abruptly when another bout of pain rocked through her, and she immediately questioned her ramblings. It felt real, _fuck,_ it felt _really_ real. Maybe it wasn't, though. Maybe she was lucky; maybe she was fine. So with a shaky voice, she said it again. "It might not be real."

"Maybe not," Clint said, just because he wasn't sure how else to make this better. Her obvious panic was easily spilling into him, and it was clouding the hell out of his judgment. Somewhere in the logical part of his brain he knew he should be doing more than just sitting there like a dumbfounded idiot next to a woman who could quite possibly be going into very premature labor, but all he could think to do was fit his hand into hers so she had something to hold onto.

There was a subtle bloom of comfort in Pepper's chest when she felt Clint's rough, calloused hand wrap around hers, but it didn't last very long. As much as she was trying to tell herself that it was fine, that it was just a scare, the pain and panic felt increasingly more real every moment—her pulse was pounding in her ears, and she could barely hear her own thoughts over her labored breaths. Everything was terrifyingly amplified, and every time it seemed to fade for a second, making her think that she was okay, it came back with a renewed intensity, until— _oh, god._

"Fuck," she cursed quietly, and if Clint hadn't heard it, the death grip she had on his hand definitely got his attention. "It's real. It's definitely real."

Clint's eyebrows knit, and he wasn't exactly sure if the expression came from worry for Pepper or worry for the bones in his hand. "How do you, uh, know that?" he asked, probably dumbly, because he really shouldn't have been questioning her at a time like this.

"Um." Pepper paused and gulped down the knot in her throat. "My water just broke."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"That's… that's not good."

"No, it's not."

Clint just sat there for a moment, holding her hand and thinking about his this really wasn't how he'd expected his day to go, but he managed to kick himself into shape. He was the only one here right now, and Pepper needed him. "I'm gonna call Tony," he said, frantically shoving his free hand into his pocket to find his phone. In hindsight, he probably should have done that a while ago, rather than waiting until now to remember that he had literally no training in… well, any of this, and he didn't really feel the want or need to put _"ability to deliver babies"_ on his resume.

"No," Pepper nearly squeaked through what was definitely another contraction, and Clint froze in surprise and confusion. "Call Bruce. Jarvis can get Tony, but Bruce—he's going to freak out, you need to call him."

"O… okay." Clint was a little worried by the prospect of Bruce 'freaking out' as she had put it, but he quickly resolved himself when he realized that he'd probably dealt with worse throughout his years. Well, maybe. Dealing with the Hulk was hard enough on its own; dealing with him when he was distraught over someone he cared about, probably worse. Clint managed to shake the thoughts out of his head as he pulled out his phone and found Bruce's number in his contacts, holding the phone to his ear while it rang. _Please pick up,_ he thought vaguely frantically. _Dammit, Banner, pick the hell up._

The bones in Clint's hand felt like they were grating together from how hard Pepper was gripping it, but rather than complaining about it he just squeezed in return while the phone continued to ring. "It's gonna be okay, Pepper," he said encouragingly, "I'm gonna stay here with you until they get here. You're gonna be okay. Oh, Banner? Yeah, hi, so…"

Pepper tuned out then, intending to focus on maintaining a steady breathing pattern, but her attention shifted when the couch dipped on her other side and she realized that a very frazzled Tony was sitting beside her.

"The fuck is going on here?" Tony asked lowly, the volume of his voice clearly meant to mask his panic as he slid an arm around Pepper's back. "Jarvis said—is it—it's…"

"Don't you dare say 'it's time.' I've seen too many rom-coms to take that seriously," Pepper replied. She didn't know how she was able to get all those words out under such strain, but somehow the snark was helping minimally. "I'm not ready for this, Tony." Then she said that and her voice finally wavered, and at that point she knew her guard had collapsed.

"Yeah? Get in line," Tony mumbled, rubbing soothing circles on her back as he looked over at Clint. "That Bruce?" he asked with a gesture at the phone, and Clint nodded. "Good. Tell him to meet us at the hospital."

"We're not waiting until he gets here?" Pepper said, doing her best to loosen her grip on Clint's hand. "Shouldn't he—"

"Uh, no," Tony said, hastily shutting down the idea of staying there any longer than they absolutely had to. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that they had already stayed there and stalled for too long, but he was still working on getting himself to believe that this was actually happening. "You're apparently having a baby when you're really not supposed to be having one. We're going."

"Super impressed by how calm you are right now, Stark," Clint commented, some of his panic having drained since Tony got there. "Can't say the same for Banner, though. You might want to get going before he demolishes the city."

"Don't think everything's sunk in yet," Tony muttered in response. Despite what Clint and probably Pepper were seeing, he definitely _wasn't_ calm, not at all. Actually, he was really starting to freak the fuck out, but he was putting everything he had into keeping it together for Pepper. If anything, she needed some kind of stability right now, so Tony didn't exactly have the luxury of letting himself have the meltdown that he was definitely on the verge of having at the moment. "Come on, honey," he said gently, reaching over to pry Pepper's hand out of Clint's and help her up. "Come on, let's go."

With considerable effort, Pepper managed to pull herself up with Tony's help, but that was about as far as she got before an unbearable lance of pain went through her and she wasn't able to hold back the stunned reaction and broken cry that came with it. Tony jumped a little beside her and felt a stab of sympathy pain, but hurriedly pulled himself back together and just held onto her even tighter. "This doesn't feel right," Pepper choked out, and the statement applied to far more than just the fact that everything was happening too fast for her to comprehend. "I—I don't think it's supposed to feel like this—"

"Just keep her in there," Tony sputtered hastily. He didn't mean to squash her words, but he really wasn't equipped to deal with anything else that might be going wrong on top of what was already happening. In all honesty, everything about the current moment was already too wrong for him, and he wasn't even factoring in all the things that apparently had already been wrong in the past several months.

Everything was just too fucking _wrong_ , just when he was finally starting to feel that it might be right.

Somehow, though, Tony managed to find the power within himself to push away his impending dread and put all of his focus into getting to the hospital and letting the doctors deal with whatever the hell was happening. There wasn't any way he could deal with the prospect of her not being okay, and he wasn't about to waste any more time and let that happen.

"Can you do that for me?" he said, not fully away that he'd actually said the breathless words out loud. "Just keep her in there and be okay, just for a little longer, Pep."


	14. 34 Weeks Part Two

_Breathe._

It was a command that Pepper had heard far too many times for her liking since the beginning. She'd told herself to breathe way back when, during those sleepless nights when most of the aching came from wondering if Tony would ever come around. She'd told herself to breathe whenever the notion of doing this on her own got to be too much, just because focusing on a single-word command was easier than letting herself fall apart.

 _Breathe._

Then, several months later, the command had turned over to Bruce when he was still the only one who knew that the pain was more than just mental. Again, the word only ever came out at night, when Tony was asleep beside them and Bruce's warm arms were around her, trying to get her through the uncomfortable episodes that came night after night. Listening to him say it was better. That way, she was sure that she wasn't on her own anymore.

 _Breathe._

Now it was Tony's turn to say it, but Pepper wished with everything she had that it was under different circumstances. It was too early; it wasn't right. His knuckles were white around the steering wheel as he just repeated it over and over, probably with the hopes that getting some air would soften some of the whimpers and cries of pain that Pepper just couldn't hold back no matter how hard she tried.

She tried to breathe, but she couldn't. Not now.

The trip from the car into the hospital was nothing short of a blur. It was a whirlwind of nurses and monitors and fluorescent lights, and somewhere in between Bruce came tumbling into the room in a windblown frenzy.

"I should have stayed." Bruce was muttering to himself as he took a place beside Pepper opposite where Tony was on the other side of the narrow hospital bed. "I should have been there. Dammit, I should have stayed." The words were laced with regret and self-doubt, and Pepper wasn't sure if it was his hand trembling against her arm or if she was just in too much pain to realize that it was actually her entire body that was shaking.

"Don't think it would have made much a difference if you were there, buddy," Tony said in a clear attempt to be supportive, but his tone didn't do anything but convey how guilty he felt for not being there, either.

"Doesn't matter," Bruce mumbled, then dropped the subject in favor of turning his attention back to Pepper instead. "How are you? Are you okay?" Dumb question. Clearly she wasn't _okay_ ; none of them were. The answer was only reaffirmed when Pepper didn't answer, and Bruce felt his heart leap worriedly and then snap back into place like elastic. "Pepper? Can you hear me?"

Pepper wanted to answer. She really did. But as it was, she was genuinely terrified that if she opened her mouth to speak, all that would come out would be another strained and rather bloodcurdling cry of pain, and she was the last person who wanted to hear that again. Her insides felt like they were tearing themselves apart with every contraction and, honestly, even every breath— _no, Bruce, I'm not fucking okay._

She still nodded, though. He needed confirmation that she wasn't too far gone to not be able hear him, and she was at least capable of giving him that much.

"What's going on in here?" Dr. Montgomery swept into the room then, trailed by a couple nurses and what looked like a few dumbfounded medical students who stayed closer to the door. If it had been under any other circumstance, Pepper would have wanted the wide-eyed, untrained interns as far away from her as possible— _if you think those amateur eyes are looking between my legs, you've got another thing coming—_ but as it was, she would take any and all options she could get if it meant making this agony stop.

"Kinda hoping you could tell me," Tony said, a twinge of bitter sarcasm making its way into his tone despite his best efforts. Pepper mistakenly tried to produce a laugh at his lack of poise, but instead all that came out was a vaguely mangled, suppressed noise of pain.

"That's the plan," the doctor basically muttered as she checked over Pepper and worked on getting an ultrasound going as fast as possible. "Pepper? Can you talk to me?"

Pepper would have shook her head 'no,' but that would have required a significant amount of effort that she wasn't prepared to take away from the task of staying reasonably quiet. She knew it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but even as all the other sounds and voices around her dulled to an unintelligible murmur, she held on tightly to the notion that she didn't want to hear herself scream.

They must have worked out that a fist-hand account wasn't an option, because when Pepper forced her eyes open again she could make out the movement of Tony's lips as he explained. Bruce was stiff beside her, a worrying amount if she'd been able to properly process it, but her mind didn't let her off its short leash long enough to focus on anything but the horror show playing out inside her body. Carefully, Pepper drew in a breath, hoping that some oxygen might help her tune back into the frenzy in the room around her—but then the doctor pressed the ultrasound probe a little too hard in definitely the wrong spot, and the scream she had put so much effort into stifling finally ripped out of her.

Everything faded to white noise then, and Pepper wasn't even sure if she was still conscious. Pain had consumed every part of her, a white hot searing sensation throughout every inch of her body—no, this couldn't be what unconsciousness felt like. It couldn't feel like _this._

"Prep an OR." Somehow those three words cut through the fog as the doctor barked them, and Pepper felt herself well up with terror again, the dread rising and filling up all the cracks like smoke. "She's hemorrhaging, that baby needs to come out right now."

That was the last thing Pepper heard before she faded out again and her surroundings seemed to disappear. She didn't register any movement or a change of scenery, but the one thing she felt beyond the pain was the sudden rush of cold air against her hands when the warmth of Tony and Bruce's stiff grips was gone.

 _This can't be happening._

A breath.

 _It's too early._

Another breath.

 _I'm not ready._

* * *

Once the doctors, nurses, and other generally frantic members of the hospital staff had wheeled Pepper out of the room, Tony suddenly felt the weight of the crushing silence upon his shoulders.

The room just seemed so empty, and not only in the literal sense—he felt like the entire world had just fallen out around him, and all he was left with was static background and the sounds of his own heavy breaths whooshing in his ears. He hadn't felt this kind of empty, static void open up within in since… well, since Afghanistan, or since he watched Pepper fall 200 feet into that pit of fire, or since those brief moments not too long ago that he feared Bruce might leave him because of the very thing they were experiencing right now.

It was so consuming and overwhelming that Tony wasn't sure if it would ever end, or if he would ever get his own thoughts and emotions back in his own control. Whenever he took a breath it seemed to fill a body that didn't feel like his own, and his vague thoughts seemed to ricochet uncontrollably off the sides of his skull—god, is this was Bruce felt like?

Oh. Shit.

Bruce.

It wasn't until that particular thought crossed his mind that Tony remembered he wasn't alone in the room, and when he managed to come back to himself just barely, he realized that the rough, labored breaths he'd been hearing weren't even his own. They were Bruce's, and once Tony's eyes refocused he very much understood why the man was breathing so harshly.

"Bruce?" Tony would have cringed at the sound of his voice if he wasn't already so preoccupied. It was raspy, crackly, and filled with a disgusting amount of worry, but for the moment he was just happy to get words out. Bruce, on the other hand, wasn't having the same luck.

The man was standing, but only just barely, hunched over himself in a way that would make any chiropractor question his career choices. Bruce's hands were bunched into his unruly hair, and his knuckles were so white that Tony knew it could only mean one thing was happening. He just prayed that he wouldn't see any green beginning to spread over his boyfriend's skin.

"Bruce?" Tony said his name again, even though he knew it wouldn't snap him out of anything. "Come on, buddy, can you talk to me?" He wasn't dumb enough to ask if Bruce was okay. Clearly nobody was okay at this point, although Pepper probably took the cake.

Bruce just grunted, and the sound was definitely more beast than human. It made Tony almost hesitant to approach, but he had to if he didn't want to call up the Stark Relief Fund to rebuild the hospital after a certain green beast made it topple to the ground. _That_ wasn't something Tony wanted on the news (especially considering how vulnerable Pepper was at the moment). It had just been so long since Tony had to talk Bruce down and out of a potential incident, and now _really_ wasn't the best time to do it. At all.

"Okay… look, Big Guy, now really isn't a good time," Tony started, the sigh and exasperation audible in his tone. He wasn't totally sure who he was actually talking to here, but he supposed that speaking directly to the Other Guy couldn't hurt. "As much as I enjoy our quality time together, I need you to stay away for now, all right? We can chat about it later. Bruce, I really need you to fight this."

Tony took a step towards the other man, carefully lifting his arms to wrap Bruce's clenched fists in his fingers. His words probably weren't very soothing or helpful and he was sure that the touch wasn't either, but Tony needed to pull out all the stops here. His own insides felt like they were on the verge of boiling over, and he knew that he wouldn't be able to handle Bruce's doing the same.

The skin of Bruce's hands was taut and hot underneath Tony's touch, but that only made Tony grip tighter with the hope that the contact would help Bruce snap out of it. "Come on, Bruce, you're stronger than this," he said, but the fact that the man was on the edge of a Hulk-out given the current situation made him question that statement. "You can do this, bud, just focus. Focus on me, all right?"

For some part, it at least looked like Bruce was trying. His fists were still sealed shut like steel and he was still muttering unintelligibly, but the muttering was a good sign in Tony's book. Muttering meant he was still human enough to speak, until Tony recognized the tiny words as "I can't," repeated over and over like a broken record.

"You can." Tony said it on instinct just because it seemed right, but he yet again found himself with some doubts. "You can do this, babe. I need you to do this." A pause, and a tighter grip as Tony inched forward to press his forehead against Bruce's, feeling the heat scorch his skin. "I need _you,"_ he said softly, but with every bit on conviction he had left. "Pepper needs you. Come on."

Finally, those words seemed to break through Bruce's barrier, and slowly, painfully, he started to loosen. Tony could see the man's muscles physically retract back to a normal size, and if watching Bruce calm down from a near-incident wasn't so gross, Tony would have been intrigued. For now, though, he was just relieved when Bruce loosened the hands that were in his hair and lowered his arms, giving Tony the opportunity to properly hold his hands.

"I want to get out of here," the man panted, and the strain in his voice and breath made Tony almost wince in sympathy.

"Uh… okay," Tony replied, his gaze shooting around the empty room before it landed on Bruce again. "Like… out of the entire hospital? I mean, I want to go with you, buddy, but…" He didn't want to finish that sentence, because finishing it would mean acknowledging that Pepper was still in the operating room and they had no idea what was going on or if she was even okay. It probably wasn't the best idea to remind Bruce of that right now, and Tony could do without thinking about it, too.

"No," Bruce answered roughly, and Tony deflated. He didn't want to think about what was happening to Pepper, but that didn't mean he was ready to leave the hospital without her. "This room. I want to get out of this room, it's too small, and this is where it happened, and—"

"Okay." Tony could see that Bruce was starting to shake again, so he held the man's hands a little tighter and began to guide him out of the room. He had to agree that getting out of the room was for the better, just because the longer he was in there the more he could hear Pepper's screams echoing in his ears. "Let's go find somewhere to sit, and maybe get some coffee later or something. Hospital coffee tastes like shit, but I could probably go for some right now."

He continued babbling while they walked and eventually reached a place to sit and wait that wasn't too crowded. He draped an arm over Bruce's shoulders once they were about as comfortable as they were going to be, and once Bruce finally seemed to be calm enough with his thoughts to not need Tony's constant rambling as a distraction, he stopped.

They say there for quite some time, and for the second time in not too long, Tony was overwhelmed with sudden silence again. Silence meant that he didn't have anything to focus on but his own thoughts and anxieties, and even with Bruce' head resting warmly against his shoulder, he felt completely, devastatingly alone.

Pepper had always been the one who stood at his side, unwavering, whenever he was the one who needed saving (which, admittedly, happened much more often than the other way around). And even when he didn't, she was still there, the ever-present eye in the center of his constant hurricane, his rock, his ray of hope. Even after they'd broken up and Tony had fallen in love with Bruce—his other saving grace—she was _still_ there next to him, holding him up. Tony may have been Iron Man, but it was likely that Pepper was more of a superhero than he could ever hope to be.

Without her, he felt naked. Stripped. Vulnerable.

Alone.

Clearly, though, he wasn't alone, as evidenced by Bruce pressed against his side. Bruce, the man who still loved him despite both of their flaws, and who probably loved Pepper in some of the same ways Tony did. What Bruce and Pepper had was different, but no less meaningful, and Tony felt something inside of him break yet again at the prospect of watching Bruce go through this alongside him.

"Tony?" Bruce must have noticed his unusual demeanor, but Tony was just glad to hear the man speaking steadily again after earlier.

"What?"

"You're looking a little pale there." Bruce lifted his head from Tony's shoulder, examining his boyfriend's admittedly slack and ghostlike expression. "And all this quiet is making me a little jumpy."

"Join the club," Tony mumbled. He wasn't sure if the 'quiet' Bruce was referring to was their own wordless company or the fact that they still hadn't gotten an update on Pepper or the baby, but he figured both were applicable. "But I guess no news is good news, right?"

"I guess," Bruce agreed half-heartedly. "Want to tell me what's going on in that big head of yours?"

Tony sighed, hesitant. _Not really,_ he thought bitterly, but the insistence in Bruce's tone suggested that he was trying to return the favor from earlier. It was something he always did after Tony talked him down, probably because he felt guilty in his typical Bruce Banner fashion, but Tony had since learned the best thing to do was humor the man. So he spilled. "I just never pictured it like this," he admitted, weakly shrugging a shoulder. "The whole kid thing. I mean, I didn't picture it that much to begin with, since I'm really not the dad-type and we didn't think Pep could have them anyway. But still, I didn't think it would be like this." The side of his face burned where Bruce's eyes were glued to it, but Tony decided to avoid eye contact for the time being.

"How did you picture it?" Bruce asked gently, and the question as well as the tone made Tony very glad that he'd left his gaze on the floor. God, emotions were embarrassing.

"I dunno. Normal, I guess?" Tony tried to explain. "Like all that white picket fence suburban shit. You know, we'd be married, she'd get pregnant, be happy and glowing the whole time. I'd hold her hand in the delivery room while she probably yelled at me for something, then we'd have the perfect little chubby kid with the big eyes and the dimples and all that." He paused because his thoughts had gone a little too misty for him to gather, then shrugged again. "I also always thought we'd have a boy. Not that it matters. Girls are cool, too."

"They are," Bruce agreed, and if Tony had been looking, he would have seen the man try to smile. "Guess I threw a wrench into your imaginary plan, huh?" he added, clearly attempting to approach a joking tone but falling a few feet short.

"No." Tony knew Bruce didn't mean that, but he had to say it anyway. Bruce wasn't a _wrench,_ or a distraction, or just an addition—he was just as much a part of this as him and Pepper were, and Tony almost felt sick at the idea that Bruce possibly thought that he wasn't. "No. It's not you. It's everything else." He inhaled a breath and licked his lips, dry from the stale hospital air, and tilted his head back to look at the ceiling. The fluorescent lights hurt his eyes, but it was easier to focus on the physical pain than the mental warfare going on inside him at the moment.

"I didn't think this would try to take her away from me." Tony finally said it, and the words stung like hell. "Away from us."

Bruce had set his hand on Tony's leg as the man spoke, and once those words left Tony's mouth, he noticed how tight Bruce's grip had become. He was fairly sure it might even leave a mark, and Tony suddenly regretted saying what he had.

"This isn't going to take her away from us," Bruce said firmly, seemingly refusing to let his voice waver again. "I won't let it."

"That's what I keep telling myself," Tony muttered, unable to help how hopeless his voice sounded. He briefly wondered what exactly Bruce meant by not _letting_ anything happen, but when he really thought about it, he couldn't imagine that Bruce's methods of dealing with something happening to Pepper would be pleasing for anybody involved.

Tony inhaled another cleansing breath, and let it go as he dragged his eyes away from the blinding ceiling lights to look at Bruce. It was the first time he'd looked at his boyfriend in about an hour, probably, and he realized that Bruce's haggard expression and dark circles under his eyes was probably like looking in a mirror. "How did your lecture go?" he asked, since he'd really had enough emotions for the time being, and talking about them was only making the situation worse.

Bruce paused, then looked as if he were attempting a smile as he nodded sadly, getting the point. "Good," he answered simply. "I think they liked it. I had a chat with some of the people from the science department afterwards, they're looking for someone to teach an honors section of a biochem course in the spring." He paused again, contemplative, then shrugged. "I might take it."

"How's the pay?" Tony asked shallowly.

"I work for Stark Industries, and live with the CEO as well as the namesake, does NYU's pay bracket really matter?"

"Fair point." Tony had just been teasing anyway; he had enough money to last several lifetimes and then some, and planned on always supporting him no matter what, even if he didn't want or need it. "You should do it. It might be good for you."

"It'll get me out of your smelly lab, at least," Bruce joked, and Tony reached over to pinch his thigh. At the very least, it was refreshing to hear more than a concerned, monotone inflection in Bruce's voice, and to talk about something that might help bring their lives back to a somewhat normal routine. "It'll be interesting to see how students take to me," Bruce mused. "With… you know."

"I'm sure you'll get many questions about the other guy in your life. And I don't mean the Hulk." Tony winked, and Bruce rolled his eyes as he mouthed the word 'shallow' under his breath. "Professor Banner," Tony said, trying the words to see how they felt as he slumped back in his chair. "Hm. Can I call you that in bed?"

"I'll think about it."

Tony nearly continued on that note, but he stopped when he noticed Bruce's eyes dart to something behind him, and he turned around to find a young resident doctor standing there, looking tired yet hopeful.

"Ms. Potts is out of surgery," the young man said, but Tony held back any expression of relief until the doctor finished and he had all of the information. "She's still asleep, but you can see her if you'd like."

"Yeah," Tony said immediately, barely giving the doctor time to say anything more before he was standing up and grabbing Bruce's hand. "Yeah, I want to see her. What about the baby?"

"Dr. Montgomery is still in the OR with her," the doctor replied, and even his demeanor of carefully practiced calm wasn't enough to keep Tony's heart from sinking. "We'll continue giving you updates as they come."

Tony felt Bruce's hand begin to tremble just slightly within his own, so Tony squeezed firmly. Not the news he wanted to hear, but it was better than the alternative. He repeated that in his head like a mantra as they followed the resident through the maze of halls to Pepper's room, and Tony's nose stung against the smell of disinfectant until they pushed through a door and he was hit with a staggering amount of relief when he finally saw Pepper again.

She looked miles better than Tony had been expecting, although he didn't really know what he imagined walking into that room would be like. She was sleeping peacefully by the looks of things, though who knew what the hell kind of drugs they had her on to keep it that way, and there wasn't much more than a single needle taped to her arm that led to the IV bag hanging motionlessly at the side of the bed.

Sure, Pepper looked okay, but Tony still wished with everything he had that he didn't have to see her like this.

He walked closer and took a seat silently in the hard plastic chair beside the bed, lifting an arm with the intent to take her hand, but stopped himself short. She seemed so pale and so fragile, and as irrational as it was, Tony was almost afraid that if he touched her she might break.

"She should wake up soon." The doctor's words startled Tony back to the present, and by the way Bruce's hand twitched against his shoulder, he guessed that the other man was in the same position. "I'll give you three some privacy, but I'll be back a little later to take some more readings and check on the incision site. Dr. Montgomery will be in as soon as she's finished, and she can give you more details." The man exited the room them, leaving Tony and Bruce to their own devices. The room was quiet except for the sounds of each of them breathing and the thankfully steady blips of Pepper's heart monitor, and Tony found himself struggling to find something to say or do that would make this somehow less depressing.

"Well, this sucks." That was the only thing that came to mind, so Tony just said it, dryly and bluntly. The comment earned a snort out of Bruce, who then moved to unfold the other plastic chair in the corner of the room and drag it over to sit beside Tony.

"At least she looks okay," Bruce said, and if Tony wasn't so focused on watching every shallow rise and fall of Pepper's chest as she breathed, he probably would have commented on the glaringly obvious role-reversal as compared to earlier. Bruce sounded like he was trying very hard to remain optimistic, while Tony was left feeling utterly useless. "It could be worse. I'd just like to know what went on in there though, I mean, usually they don't knock people out for C-sections—"

"Bruce." Tony cut him off before he could go any further, and when he shook his head Bruce seemed to get the hint that the specifics of what happened when Pepper was behind those metal doors really weren't anything Tony wanted to think about right now. "Don't."

Bruce pressed his lips into a thin line and nodded silently. Some things were better left unsaid, and once Bruce set his arm warmly around Tony's shoulders, both of them let the silence swallow their words and resolved themselves to just wait.

Neither of them bothered keeping track of the time, but if Tony had he would have measured it by counting Pepper's steady breaths every second. At some point he'd decided that it seemed okay to take her hand, and he'd occupied himself by rubbing small circles over her knuckles until the door finally clicked open and disrupted his rhythm.

"How's everyone doing in here?" Dr. Montgomery asked, her voice gentle to minimize any disturbance her entry may have caused. Pepper didn't stir, so Tony just looked back at the doctor and shrugged indifferently.

"As well as can be expected." Bruce decided to speak for both of them when Tony didn't make an effort to form any words, and the doctor nodded understandingly as she walked over to Pepper's bedside and took a few readings. "How's the baby?"

"She's stable," Dr. Montgomery replied, and the steady tone of her voice as well as the actual words didn't do much to help Tony feel any better. _Stable_ didn't necessarily mean _good,_ but at least the news wasn't anything worse. "Her heart and lungs seem to be the problem areas, since as you know she's still a little underdeveloped for her age. I did what I could to fix them up, but we're going to keep a close eye on her for the next few days to see if she'll need anything else. It could have gone a lot worse, though. She's lucky, as is her mother." The woman offered a smile, and the gesture helped drain some of the tension in Tony's jaw and muscles. "I can give you a few minutes with her if you want," she added, looking encouragingly at Tony.

Tony finally lifted his head properly from Bruce's shoulder, and his eyes darted between the doctor, Bruce, and then Pepper while he contemplated the offer. He wanted to see his daughter, and it was probably the right thing to do at a time like this, but he couldn't shake the feeling that seeing that little girl when she was so weak and vulnerable would just make him feel worse. Seeing Pepper in that state was already becoming too much to handle; he didn't know if he could take much more.

But then he looked at Pepper again, and he knew that if she were awake she'd be telling him to go get his ass down there to see their baby and make sure for himself that she was fine. In fact, Pepper would probably be going herself, but that wasn't an option right now and the way Bruce was looking at him just proved Tony's point that he needed to do the right thing here.

"Okay," he said, setting Pepper's limp hand back down before he stood up. He briefly looked back at Bruce to silently ask if he was going to tag along, but after a beat of hesitation and a flash of what almost looked like fear across his features, the man mouthed _'I'll stay here'._

The walk from Pepper's room to the NICU was spent in silence after the doctor seemed to realize that Tony didn't seem up to talking, and even he felt strange in his own skin. It brought him back to the early days of Pepper's pregnancy when he'd kept his words and thoughts under wraps, and thinking about how it seemed to come full circle almost made Tony feel a little sick.

"I know it doesn't look like it, but she really is doing fine given the situation." Dr. Montgomery's words startled Tony out of his head, and he realized that he was suddenly standing in a room full of monitors and wires and tiny plastic cribs with even tinier babies inside them, and he felt his heart nearly stop when it dawned on him that the crib the doctor was blocking for the moment contained his own tiny baby. "I can't let you hold her yet, but you can sit with her for a little while."

She moved out of the way then, giving Tony access to the crib and the chair in front of it. He didn't look for a second, afraid of what he might see, but once he was sure that the doctor was far enough away he finally set his eyes on the crib's tiny, fragile occupant.

The vast amount of tubes and wires seemed to take up more of the crib's space than the small human inside of it did, but it took Tony less than a second to see past the monitors and the bandages and find himself completely infatuated with the presence of his real living, breathing daughter in front of him. She was small, too small, frail, and not at all how he'd pictured her; but she was beautiful, and most of all, she was _his._

"Pretty," Tony murmured, lowering himself into the chair before the crib. "Just like your mom." Of course there wasn't any telling at this stage who she looked like, but even though Tony would never admit it to either of his partners, he'd been hoping that his daughter would resemble Pepper more than him. The little tuft of what looked to be lighter-colored hair on the top of the little girl's head was a start, at least. "Tough like her too, probably."

Tony exhaled a long breath and hung his head down for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts into something sensible since they'd decided to run haywire on their own ever since he'd gotten here. Honestly, he didn't know what he was feeling—he was happy but he wasn't, he was relieved yet still terrified. The only thing saving him here was the knowledge that the fragile life in front of him was too new to understand the weight and the pain upon her father's shoulders.

"Look, kid, we need to have a chat," Tony started, almost feeling silly for talking to someone who couldn't understand a word or even a noise, but he continued anyway. "You've gotta pull out all the stops and pull through this, all right? Your mom and me and your other dad really need you to be fine. Too much stuff happened before you were born for you to not be fine, and there's so much stuff you have to see, and you've gotta give it a chance."

He hesitated then, eyes flicking between his hand and his daughter. After a moment of contemplation he carefully reached out and ever so lightly touched the little girl's arm, the tip of his finger about the size of her entire hand. "You've gotta give me a chance to be your dad, okay?" he said quietly, barely above a murmur. "I didn't have a bunch of great people growing up like you do. My dad was pretty shitty—crappy—I mean, awful… you know what, you can't even understand me… yeah, he was shitty. Really not a stand-up guy, let me tell you. I might not be the greatest option either, but I at least want to try." He gently stroked her arm, and when he reached her hand, the little girl wrapped her puny fingers around Tony's much larger one and seemed to hold on with all the strength she had. It wasn't much, but all it took was that one, feather-light squeeze for Tony to know that he was completely smitten already. "Is that a yes?" he asked, a smile curling the corners of his lips, and it widened when the baby girl squeezed again. "Okay. Good. Glad we cleared that up."

He stopped talking then, because for some reason the silence actually felt comfortable for the first time that day. Somehow, despite the situation at hand and how imperfect every bit of it was, the grip his daughter had on his finger brought Tony back to a place of contentment, hope, optimism—a place he hadn't been in far too long, and he questioned how only a few minutes with that baby girl were enough to turn his insides to sap.

Eventually, though, a nurse came by and told him he had to leave and let the baby rest, and as much as he wanted to stay for every waking moment after this, Tony complied. He left the room with the image of his daughter etched clearly into the backs of his eyelids so he saw her every time he blinked, and when he finally made his way back to Pepper's room his relief was only heightened when he saw that she was awake.

"Did you see her?" It was the first question out of Pepper's mouth as soon as Tony sat down, barely giving him a chance to absorb the fact that she was awake and alive and still beautiful despite the pale skin and bags under her eyes, but Tony didn't mind.

"Yeah," he answered simply, a little surprised himself at just how calm and relaxed his voice sounded to his own ears.

"What's she like?"

Both Pepper and Bruce were staring at him expectantly, their eyes halfway between curious and terrified. Tony just smiled, the action feeling easier than it had in weeks, and reached out to take Pepper's hand firmly in his own.

"She's perfect."


	15. 35 Weeks

"You know I don't want to leave you here, right?"

Pepper's gaze was fixed on the tine, fragile new life in her arms, asleep by the looks of things, and she sighed. She'd spent every allowable moment in this room with her daughter since she'd been able to leave her own, and from the second she laid eyes on the little girl, she was smitten. The fact that the baby was untouchable in the habitat of tubes and wires and bandages for the first several days of her life somehow made it easier for Pepper to come back down to earth, but that morning when the doctor finally gave her the go-ahead to hold her baby, she was back on cloud nine.

"I'll be back here every day until you can come home with me. I promise."

Then, after she'd gotten the slightest taste of motherhood and completely fallen in love with it, the news came that Pepper would finally be free of the hospital walls that day—but she'd be going home alone. Holding her daughter was phenomenal, but she knew that it would only make saying goodbye about a thousand times harder.

"Someone gets to come home today." Pepper looked over her shoulder at the sing-songy tone that sounded behind her, and she knew it could only belong to one person in particular. Her eyes met Tony's chest as he leaned over to kiss the top of her head, and she smiled instinctively at the action before turning her gaze back to the seemingly peaceful baby in her arms.

"About time," she commented, feeling her shoulders warm underneath Tony's arm. "I'm looking forward to real food and a bed that doesn't feel like sand paper."

"And a bed with two other, incredibly attractive people in it," Tony pointed out, and Pepper just rolled her eyes fondly. She was missing that the most, though, she had to admit. "Honestly, I'm surprised they kept you this long in the first place. A week, really?"

"I guess that's what happens when your insides don't want to stay sewn together," Pepper deadpanned, and Tony made a noise that sounded something like a snort before they both dropped it. Neither of them wanted to think about what happened a few days prior.

"Well, it'll be nice to have you back, at least. The bed's been a little cold without you," Tony said, and he shifted and leaned over in his chair to set his chin on Pepper's shoulder. He reached out a hand to touch the baby's arm, and Pepper smiled when the little girl twitched in her sleep. "How's my Sophie doing this morning?"

"She's just fine," Pepper answered, and it just seemed necessary for that statement to come with another smile (something she was doing a lot more this week than she ever had in the past). "Amazing, as always." They'd decided on the name Sophie after a few days of bickering that made Pepper wish they'd been smarter and discussed the name thing well before their daughter decided to enter the world (then again, she'd kind of thought that they had another month or so). Most of the argument was spent weeding out Tony's ridiculous class rock-inspired suggestions ("Roxanne!" "That song is about a prostitute, Tony") and narrowing it down to something that wasn't too outdated, popular, or new-age—something that proved to be a little difficult especially when Pepper factored in that it _needed_ to flow with 'Stark', because she wouldn't have it any other way.

So, Sophie it was. Sophie Stark.

Pepper didn't even want to think about tackling middle names after the fiasco first names had been, so she and Tony easily agreed to leave that one up to Bruce.

"Of course she's amazing, look at her parents," Tony said, his tone approaching something so matter-of-fact that it almost made Pepper roll her eyes. She watched Tony's hand reach across her again to ever so gently stroke Sophie's soft cheek, his touch light enough that it wouldn't disturb her. "Wait. When did they start letting you hold her?"

"Earlier today," Pepper answered, and she was vaguely amused by the expression of confusion and almost-betrayal on Tony's face, like he was baffled that he could have forgotten such an important milestone. "They said she's finally strong enough to come out of that crib without too much risk. Do you want to hold her?" she asked, turning towards Tony just a tiny bit to offer him the baby.

Tony was quiet with thought for a moment, and when Pepper looked at him, she thought she saw something close to worry or even fear cross his expression until he quickly shook it off. "No," he answered, surprising Pepper a little bit. "I think mommy should keep her for now. Don't want her to wake up."

"Mmm, okay," Pepper said, gently nudging Tony's head with her own. "Not sure I'm ready to hand her over yet, anyway." She looked back down at her daughter's serene face, then leaned down to place a light kiss on the little girl's forehead. She lingered there for a second or two, just absorbing the precious quiet of the moment, then pulled back with a gentle smile at the corner of her mouth. When she came back up, she felt that familiar, pleasant tingle of Tony's fond gaze on the side of her face, and she made the split-second decision to turn her head and gently press her lips against his. The kiss only lasted a moment, but it was enough for Pepper to be fairly warm and satisfied when she pulled away. "Where's Bruce?" she asked, suddenly aware of the man's absence.

Tony sighed, and Pepper almost felt herself shiver underneath the gentle exhale of breath against her neck. "Back in your room," he answered, and it was the same reply she'd gotten every day for the past week. "With Rhodey this time, though."

"James?" Pepper raised an eyebrow. "What's he doing here?"

"Dunno, beats me. Apparently he wants to see you or something," Tony joked, and Pepper managed to nudge an elbow into his side without disturbing Sophie. "Nah, he just dropped by this morning when we were on our way out. Said he wanted to visit you since he hasn't yet. He'll give us a lift back home when the doctors let you off the leash."

"That's nice of him," Pepper commented, absently toying with her daughter's tiny hand when she seemed to shift in her sleep. "Think he can give Bruce a lift to this room?" she added, mildly annoyed.

"Pep…"

"It's been a week, Tony." Pepper didn't give him a chance to backtrack or dodge the conversation like they had been recently. "I get that he's having a hard time. We all are. But it's not going to get any easier if he keeps dodging everything. She's his baby too, and he hasn't even _looked_ at her, it just—it doesn't seem like him."

"I know," Tony said, the exasperation clear in his inflection. "I know, I'll talk to him again. Think we should head back there and let her rest for a while?" he asked, quickly changing the subject as he gave Sophie's arm another gentle stroke. "I'm not sure I trust those two alone in a room together, Rhodes is probably giving him embarrassing ammunition against me."

"Can't be anything I haven't already told him," Pepper murmured, vaguely amused after a moment of hesitation. Having her daughter basically glued to her arms for the past hour or so just felt so natural, and she wanted to make the point that Sophie technically was resting just the way she was—but Pepper was smart enough to understand Tony's ulterior motive with the suggestion, so she reluctantly stood up and gently laid the little girl back in her crib.

"For the sake of avoiding self-incrimination, I'll just say that Rhodey has some other stories," Tony pointed out, smiling halfway innocently at Pepper's quirked eyebrow before he wrapped an arm around her back and started on their way back to her room.

When they entered Pepper's room, they were greeted by Bruce and Rhodey chatting excitedly, and they were so enthralled in whatever conversation they were having that Tony and Pepper found themselves just standing there in silence for a moment. For his part, Tony was just glad that those two had taken to each other so well in the past few years—he didn't know what he would have done if the three most important people in his life didn't get along. (Well, now it was four, since Bruce, Pepper, and Rhodey were joined by the tiny, brand new Sophie down the hall. Now, having _four_ people he cared about _that_ much—that was something Tony never would have expected.)

Tony cleared his throat, and he smirked when the sound managed to get through to the other two in the room. "Oh… there are the new parents, about time," Rhodey said, standing up to clap Tony on the back before he gave Pepper's arm a squeeze. "I don't get how you still look good even after being laid up in a hospital for a week," he said to her, grinning.

"I know, it's inhuman," Bruce agreed with a smile, reaching over to take Pepper's hand once she sat back down in the center of the bed.

Pepper just rolled her eyes at their remarks, working on getting as comfortable as possible on the hard mattress before she just gave it up. "I think you just chose a good time to finally come visit," she teased, "I looked like hell two days ago."

"Doubtful, not with that radiant 'mother's glow' thing you have going on," Rhodey replied, and Tony smirked at how noticeable the blush was on her fair skin. "How's that baby of yours?"

Tony watched Pepper's face light up when Rhodey asked the question, and he took a minute just to appreciate her smile. It was a far cry from where they'd been only a few short weeks ago, and Tony was putting quite a bit of effort in not taking any of this for granted. "Wanna go get some coffee with me?" he asked, turning towards Bruce and setting a hand on his shoulder while Pepper and Rhodey babbled at each other.

"Sure," Bruce replied, lacing his fingers with Tony's as he stood up. "I could use a walk."

They walked out of the room without too much fuss since the other two were fairly occupied, and Tony took it upon himself to lead the way. Their hands were tangled loosely in an embrace that dangled between them as they walked, and it was honestly a little strange for Tony to realize that there wasn't even a trace of tension in either of them.

"Pepper seems to be doing much better," Bruce commented, sounding uncharacteristically chirpy. It was a strange sound on him, Tony decided, but it was better than the alternative.

"Yeah, I think she's mostly out of the woods," Tony replied, and it took a little bit of effort to pull Bruce away from the muscle-memory turn towards the cafeteria. "Sophie's on her way, too."

"Who would have thought two weeks ago that we'd be feeling like this, huh?" The comment caught Tony a little off-guard for a moment, and he was stuck wondering what exactly ' _like this_ ' was supposed to mean. Sure, things were better—Pepper was fine, and Sophie at least seemed to be on her way to fine, but Tony wasn't totally confident that he could call things okay. For one, he was currently on a quest to drag his boyfriend in to visit the daughter he hadn't seen since she was born a week ago, and that definitely didn't seem _okay._ But then he turned his head and looked at Bruce's face, saw the soft smile that wasn't laced with any tension or anxiety like it had been for the past five weeks, and Tony softened. Maybe everything wasn't perfect just yet, but seeing a smile like that on Bruce's face, well… it was close. "You realize the cafeteria is the other way, right?" Bruce said, pausing in his steps for a second to gesture in the other direction.

"Yeah, we'll stop there on the way back," Tony said casually, tugging lightly on Bruce's hand to prompt him to follow. He didn't, though, and by the aloof expression on Bruce's face, Tony knew he was in for a struggle here.

"Way back from what?" Bruce asked, even though he definitely already knew the answer.

"We're going to see Sophie." So Tony said it as matter-of-factly as he could. Maybe if he didn't make a big deal about it, Bruce would be more willing to just go along with it and finally get the hard part over with. That was all he could hope for.

But of course, Bruce balked, and Tony sighed. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" the scientist asked, and Tony nearly opened his mouth to dispute it, until Bruce continued to ramble. He'd learned over the years that the easiest way to get Tony to stop rambling was just to ramble himself, apparently. "You and Pepper were just in there with her, she's probably tired, and we know that she needs her rest if she's going to—"

"She's been asleep all morning, I think she's already well-rested," Tony said, easily debunking Bruce's excuse, and he had an arsenal prepared for the rest of them. "How long are you going to avoid this, Bruce?"

Bruce just stood there, his hand limp in Tony's firm grip, contemplative. "I'm not avoiding it," he said, and Tony rolled his eyes in a way that nonverbally expressed _bullshit._ "I just—I haven't found the right time."

"You've literally had almost 24/7 this entire week to go see her. Right time, really? Do you think Pepper and I had the luxury of waiting for the 'right time' to go see our kid?" Tony didn't mean for it to sound so condescending, but that's probably how it came off if the blank look on Bruce's face was any indication. He was just already so far past this, because as painful as it was for all of them that Sophie wasn't getting off to a perfect start, Tony needed Bruce to just face it already with the rest of them. Honestly, he just needed _Bruce._ He'd needed Bruce in this from the beginning, but he decided not to analyze how obviously the tables had turned. "Just cut the bullshit, Banner, and come see your daughter with me." Tony turned away then and tugged on Bruce's hand, intending to leave the conversation behind in favor of making some actual progress.

"She's not my daughter."

Then Tony heard that, and he stopped again. Oh, god. Not _this._ "What?" he asked, turning back to look at Bruce somewhat incredulously. "Yes she is."

"No she's not." Bruce shook his head, and his lips curled into that infamous, humorless smile of his; the one he always wore when he just seemed too tired of fighting, and decided to just accept the bleak future ahead of him. Tony had made it one of his missions to stop that smile from happening, but clearly he hadn't quite gotten there yet. "Not like she's yours."

"Okay, well… duh," Tony said dumbly, but he knew better than to believe that Bruce was referring to biology here. "Unless you were sleeping with Pepper way before we were all sleeping with each other."

Bruce just snorted. "You know what I mean, Tony." Tony just raised his eyebrows and shrugged in that typical attempt at cluelessness he always used to get Bruce to spill, and as much as Bruce had caught on to it, he still fell for it every time. Tony damn well knew it, too. "I'm just not a part of this like you and Pepper are."

"Where is all of this coming from, Bruce?" The previously faked expression of confusion on Tony's face suddenly turned genuine. He let go of Bruce's hand and faced him properly, and he was grateful that this section of the hallway seemed fairly empty. "A couple months ago you were on my ass about being a 'part of this' and going with Pep to her appointments and generally being more of a dad to that kid than I was… and now you're backing out? You're kinda blindsiding me here, Big Guy."

"I'm not backing out," Bruce replied, and Tony pursed his lips at the obvious denial. "That's why I haven't gone to see her yet," he later amended, "it would give me something to back out and run away from."

When Tony paused again, he wasn't sure if the vaguely stunned silence was in response to the sentiment itself or Bruce's troubling word choice. He'd been under the impression that Bruce had gotten over the running thing once he and Tony finally became exclusive (as selfish as it may seem), and if anything, he would have thought that Pepper and now Sophie gave him even more of a reason to stay. Rationally, he knew how unlikely it was that Bruce would leave. Most of the time, though, Tony was an irrational person. "So you're just not even gonna try at all?" he asked.

"I…" Bruce sighed, his eyes turned towards Tony yet still looking past him. "I don't know what I'm going to do." There was an overwhelming sense of dread brewing in the pit of Tony's stomach at the idea that everything they'd been through in the past couple weeks was a lie. Bruce just seemed so content, so _happy_ in a way Tony hadn't seen him until they let Pepper into their relationship. Sure, there had been rough patches when Pepper's complications really set in, but they'd managed—a large part, probably, due to Bruce. "I don't… know, or feel… like I am or should be a part of any of this," Bruce added quietly, and Tony felt like a knife had been plunged straight into his back.

"Are you saying that me and Pepper don't make you feel like a part of this?" Tony asked, the words leaking out unintentionally like the blood from his metaphorical wound.

"No!" Bruce said the word so quickly and concisely that Tony wondered what his expression must have looked like to prompt such an exclamation. Regardless, he was pleased with the answer anyway. "No, god. You two are amazing. I love you both so much, you know that." Bruce hesitated to pull in a breath, and he lifted a hand to shove his glasses back up his nose. "I'm putting down roots, Tony. I always told myself I wouldn't put down roots after the accident. You know… just in case," he started, and Tony felt his stomach twist when he realized where this might be going. "I was fine putting down roots with you. It took a while to be fine with it, but I was. Then I put down even more roots with Pepper. But now there's all of this, and with a baby…" Bruce shrugged, seemingly helplessly. "That's a lot of roots. Deep ones. And that's… that's fucking terrifying."

Tony had seen Bruce conflicted before, seen him about to run, and maybe even talked him out of it once or twice. Bruce was just a conflicted being; it was just his nature, and Tony had seen plenty of it. Not like this, though. Never like this. And the more Tony thought about it, the less sense it made. The fear he got—he was scared, and Pepper was scared, and apparently, Bruce was scared too. But all this talk about roots, about keeping distance "just in case", Tony wasn't able to decipher. Maybe it was because finally getting a glimpse inside Bruce's true thoughts and motivations scared the shit out of him, since it certainly sounded like Bruce wasn't one hundred percent in this.

Tony knew better than that, though. He knew that Bruce definitely was _in this._ He could see it in the way the man looked at him or at Pepper, feel it in the way Bruce touched him and held him at night. For the moment he thought Bruce might even think of running, it hurt. Knowing the truth that he was just scared to let himself love too much hurt even more.

"Maybe that's what you need," Tony suggested, getting Bruce to look back at him directly by breaking the silence between them. "Roots. You're always saying how much you want a family, Bruce. There's no point in wanting something if you're afraid to get it." He decided not to address the ridiculous amount of hypocrisy in that statement, and instead reached out to take Bruce's hand again, turning back towards the doors that led into the NICU. "Come on, we're going to visit our daughter."

There was some resistance on Tony's arm when he started walking and Bruce continued to stand still, but Tony wasn't having any more of that conversation. Talking could only go so far, actually doing was going to make progress. Finally, the resistance lessened, and Tony stifled a quiet sigh of relief. Now they were getting somewhere.

He could still feel the tension in Bruce's grip when he pulled the man through the doors to the NICU, but honestly, for his part, Tony was even a little nervous himself. His heart always seemed to beat a little faster and out of time whenever he saw Sophie, and he wasn't sure if he would ever get over the rush. He looked back at Bruce, who had visibly paled after entering the room, and resolved himself to get the man into Sophie's corner and away from the array of other tiny, sickly babies as soon as possible. On second thought, Tony could understand why Bruce had made an effort to avoid this area of the hospital.

"There's my girl," Tony said gently as he approached Sophie's crib, letting go of Bruce's hand to gently touch his daughter's little arm. "Yeah, see? She's awake. Told you she had enough rest." A wide grin had appeared on his face, and he turned it onto Bruce a moment later, only to find that the man was still keeping his distance. Tony debated pulling him closer, but even getting him in here in the first place was an accomplishment—he wasn't going to push him, and at the very least, he could see that the corner of Bruce's mouth wanted to twitch into a hesitant smile. He turned his gaze back to Sophie then, and tentatively reached out with the intent to pick her up. "Alright… how do I… I guess I just…?"

"You don't know how to hold your own baby?" Bruce asked skeptically, quirking an eyebrow.

"Okay, in my defense, Pep only got to hold her for the first time this morning," Tony explained as a nurse walked over to him, seeing that he needed some help. "You know I'm not really the baby-holding kind of guy, and the few I _have_ held weren't attached to a bunch of wires that look really important." By the time he finished rambling, the nurse had wrapped the baby in a blanket and was setting her in Tony's arms, and his breath caught in his throat when Sophie was finally wrapped up safely in his arms. "Oh. Okay. Hi. Wow, you're tiny."

She really was. Tony had spent so long only being able to look and not touch that he didn't realize just how small Sophie actually was until he was holding her against his broad chest, and a brief moment of fear washed over him at the prospect that he might break her. All of that melted away though when the little girl squirmed in his arms and rolled her head towards his chest, and Tony could have sworn he saw her smile.

He could feel Bruce's eyes on him, and when he finally built up the strength to look away from Sophie's angelic face, he jerked his head in an attempt to gesture Bruce closer. "You can get closer, you know," he said, "pretty sure she doesn't bite."

"I don't know," Bruce chuckled dryly, shifting on his feet before he took a tiny step in Tony's direction. "I never thought the world would see Tony Stark with a baby, so clearly anything can happen." In the time it took Tony to roll his eyes playfully at the remark, Bruce must have worked up the courage to walk forward and stand next to his boyfriend. Tony heard him audibly inhale when he laid eyes on the baby, and finally it seemed like some of the tension from their earlier conversation had drifted away. "Wow," he breathed, clearly at a loss for any other descriptive words. "She's beautiful, Tony."

"I know. Courtesy of her mother." Tony grinned, twisting to face the other man enough that their daughter was swaddled in the warmth between them. "Well, since you finally got your ass down here officially… Bruce, this is Sophie, and Sophie, this is Bruce, your other dad. And he's gonna hold you now."

"I wouldn't let Pepper hear you running your trash mouth like that around her," Bruce scolded lightly, but before he got a chance to continue Tony had already moved forward and was carefully transferring Sophie to Bruce's arms. He sputtered for a second, caught completely off-guard, but Tony wasn't wasting any time so he instinctively brought his arms up and around the little girl before he could think about it. "Tony, what—"

"Just hold her," Tony said casually, setting his hand on Bruce's shoulder. "She's yours."

Bruce's face was still tight with worry and something close to fear, and rather than feeding it by talking too much, Tony just left his hand on Bruce's arm and waited. Waited for Bruce's hands to finally stop shaking, waited for him to finally realize that though the tiny new life in his arms was delicate, she wasn't going to break. It took a good several minutes, but Bruce eventually seemed to soften, and Tony's lips curled into a gentle smile.

Tony's hand left Bruce's warm shoulder for a minute to grab a couple of plastic chairs and drag them over. He sat down and gestured Bruce to do the same, and the man complied without once taking his eyes off Sophie. "Still afraid of those roots?" he asked, and it took a few seconds for Bruce to register the words before he shook his head.

"I don't know," Bruce said quietly, taking Sophie's hand between two of his much larger fingers as he looked up at Tony for the first time in several minutes. "I don't think so."

"Yeah." Tony just smiled and patted his back. "Doesn't take very long for her to get you wrapped, huh?"

"Not at all," Bruce chuckled, and his smile only widened when Sophie gurgled and squirmed in his arms. Tony was fairly sure that Bruce still had a long way to go before he was completely fine with the situation at hand, but at the very least they were off to a good start. For now, though, Tony decided that this moment was too good, too pure to ruin with overthinking, so he just leaned over and pressed a lingering kiss to the side of Bruce's head.

Tony didn't bother keeping track of the time after that, since he was far too focused on just how beautiful Bruce's face was when he was actually, genuinely happy, but he was startled out of his trance by a slender hand landing on his shoulder.

"Well, would you look at that," Pepper said, standing behind where the two of them were seated. "Bruce finally took the plunge." The smile was audible in her voice, and Tony was sure he detected a trace of relief in her words as he watched her ruffle Bruce's hair with her other hand.

"Yeah, had to pull a few teeth, but I got him down here. Didn't take too long for Soph to claim her next victim," Tony replied, and he stifled a chuckle when he noticed Bruce's expression turn sheepish. He twisted in his chair to look at Pepper, noticing that she was dressed in her definition of street clothes and looking much more like herself than she had in the past week. "What, did Rhodes ditch you already?"

"No. He actually went to go get some coffee since you two were taking so long," Pepper chastised, giving Tony's shoulder a gentle pinch. "But I figured I might find you here."

"That predictable, huh?" Bruce asked, looking up at her with a smirk of his own.

"Yep." Pepper smiled sweetly and brushed another unruly lock of hair from Bruce's face that was probably a result of her mussing it in the first place, but she really didn't mind the harmless force of habit. "Did Tony ask you about the name thing yet?" she asked, glancing down her daughter still wrapped safely in Bruce's arms.

"Name thing?" Bruce asked, twisting in his chair to look curiously between the other two. Sophie made a small noise that sounded close to a squeal when his attention was taken off of her, even if only for a second, and Bruce had to smirk at how she was clearly already taking after Tony. "I thought you two already had that covered."

"If you call arguing for four and a half days 'having it covered', then yeah, we had it covered," Tony said, and Pepper rolled her eyes behind him where he couldn't see the action.

"It wouldn't have taken that long if you'd given up on the ridiculous suggestions a lot sooner," Pepper replied, and turned her attention back to Bruce before her and Tony could devolve into another fit of bickering. "We want you to pick her middle name," she sad to Bruce, watching his expression shift. "I know it might not seem like much…"

"No, no, that's…" Bruce shook his head, looking back down at Sophie again. "That's more than enough." He could feel Tony and Pepper both looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue, but Bruce had to take a step back and just absorb all of this again. He'd gotten swept away in how phenomenal it felt to actually be let in to this part of Tony and Pepper's lives, and for the many minutes he'd been holding their daughter he'd almost forgotten about the conversation he'd had with Tony earlier. _Roots._ Meeting Sophie had already plunged some of those into the ground, and Bruce had apparently decided that he was fine with that. Giving her another name, though, a name he'd always thought he'd give to his own daughter—that was something entirely different.

But Tony was right, he told himself. Sophie was _his daughter._ Maybe it wasn't traditional or normal or even understandable for most, but she was. Hell with the roots, he decided. He'd already laced his life with too many to run away now.

"Rebecca," he finally said, holding the little girl closer when the name left his lips. "I'd like it to be Rebecca, if that's all right with both of you."

Tony and Pepper exchanged a glance, and Bruce held his breath until the two of them shared a gentle smile and Pepper leaned over to kiss his cheek. "Rebecca it is, then," she said against his ear, "perfect name for our perfect daughter."

Bruce just hummed in agreement, letting himself bask in the warmth from the two bodies close beside him as he watched Sophie's clear blue eyes slowly flutter shut. Yeah, he thought, he could live with roots. Roots were fine if it was with them.


	16. 40 Weeks

It had been three weeks since they had brought Sophie home, and Pepper still wasn't used to it.

Well, she'd gotten used to some of it. She was used to being woken up in the middle of the night by a needy human being, she was used to cleaning up messes, and she was used to knowing that somebody else's life was fairly dependent on her own competence and organization. Most of those things came from being what really amounted to Tony's caretaker for the better part of 15 years. With Sophie, the midnight calls and daily messed were something of a different sort, but Pepper could still say without a doubt that she was used to it.

She just wasn't used to the other part.

She wasn't used to the way it felt when Sophie all but melted into her mother's arms, blinked her big, blue eyes, and wrapped her tiny hand around the ends of Pepper's hair. She wasn't used to the way her chest tightened when the little girl smiled for the first time, or when she fell asleep in one of her fathers' arms at night. She wasn't used to the all-encompassing yet somehow pleasantly suffocating knowledge that she could actually love a part of herself _that much,_ because there wasn't any denying that Sophie Rebecca Stark was just a _part_ of her now.

No, she wasn't used to any of that. But she didn't need to be.

Pepper said a quick greeting when she made her way back into the penthouse apartment, dropping a few bags of groceries on the kitchen counter before she was quietly shushed by someone over on the sofa. A gesture like that could only come from one person in particular, and Pepper's suspicions were confirmed when she walked over and spotted Tony slumped in the center of the couch, Bruce's head resting on one shoulder and Sophie seemingly asleep on the other.

Three weeks later, and Pepper wasn't used to _that_ , either.

"Did you just shush me?" she asked, raising her eyebrows incredulously even though she kept her voice deliberately low, just to avoid Tony making that ridiculous noise again.

"Baby's sleeping," Tony reasoned, and he looked like he was have shrugged if he had the ability. "Your obnoxious bag sounds would've woken her up. Why do you even go grocery shopping, anyway? We have people for that, you know."

"Some of us do enjoy the mundane things," Pepper responded dryly, and the comment earned a quiet chuckle out of Bruce. She met his eyes and they shared a quick smile before Pepper carefully sat down on Tony's other side, setting her hand on Sophie's back as she slept. "How long has she been napping? Have you even gotten her ready?"

"She has been bathed, fed, changed, and dressed," Tony said, listing the completed tasks off with impressive speed and ease that Pepper definitely did not expect, "in that order. I'll have you know she even picked out the outfit herself." He grinned that ridiculously white and toothy grin of his and gestured to the soft fabric onesie etched with a pretty fair representation of the Iron Man suit, and Pepper fought the urge to roll her eyes. She'd bought it months before Sophie was even born, knowing that Tony was have a fit if _someone_ didn't get it. "All of that must have tuckered her out, so she's been chilling with her dads for a while. She'll be up soon."

"She appears to have inherited her father's need for at least two hours of beauty sleep before dealing with people," Bruce tacked on at the end, his lips twitching into a smile.

"And which father is that?" Pepper asked teasingly, giving Bruce a knowing look that just earned an innocent shrug of his shoulders. He mouthed the word 'debatable' in response, and Pepper reached across Tony's chest to ruffle his hair before replacing her hand on Sophie's back. She leaned over and placed a tiny kiss on the top of her daughter's head, and as if in cue, the little girl began to stir against Tony's shoulder.

"Great, nice going, you woke her up," Tony scolded lightly, but Pepper just rolled her eyes and put it down to joking. "If she starts screaming I'm blaming you."

"Feel free," Pepper replied dismissively, deciding that she'd rather watch Sophie yawn and stretch and make about four disgustingly adorable facial expressions as she woke up instead of paying any attention to Tony's teasing. Luckily the baby didn't cry, but she did make a few noises when her wide eyes settled on her mother, so Pepper took it upon herself to carefully lift the little girl from Tony's shoulder and hold her in her arms instead. Tony pouted, but Pepper ignored that, too.

"Hi," Pepper cooed gently, letting Sophie squirm in her arms until she seemed to find a comfortable spot. Once she did, Pepper found herself swept away by another one of those waves of wonderment and warmth and the all-consuming desire for this to never end. It was so surreal to look back on the months of tension and turmoil that preceded this moment and realize all of those terrible things were what had gotten her _here,_ with a perfect baby in her arms and two decidedly imperfect yet amazing men beside her. Maybe the road wasn't easy and maybe this wasn't everyone's idea of family, but it was everything for Pepper, and she was reluctant to let this little circle of perfection stretch into the world outside.

"Are you sure she's ready to meet everybody today?" she asked the room in general, not directing the question towards anyone in particular.

"Maria, Nat, and Steve are hardly everybody," Bruce pointed out, straightening up against Tony's side so he could see Pepper properly.

"I know, but the doctor said to let her lay low for a little while so she doesn't get overwhelmed," Pepper countered, even though that wasn't her actual argument at all. She just didn't want to let go of the idea that Sophie was their own tiny miracle that they kept hidden away for only themselves. Rhodey and Clint had already met her, Pepper supposed, but the thought of exposing her daughter to more people on the outside (despite how much she felt something close to trust for all of them) was still vaguely nerve-wracking.

"She's been laying low since she came home, Pep," Tony said, shifting his arm to slide his hand along her leg. "I think she's probably bored of us by now. And I also think that you're worrying too much, but that's old news." Pepper turned her head to the side and gave him a look, to which Tony just smiled since all three of them knew he was right. Hell, Sophie had probably even noticed the chronic worrying by now.

"Tony's right." Bruce confirmed it anyway, though. The statement was accompanied by a gentle chuckle as he stood up with the intent to get something to drink, but he paused behind the couch where Pepper was seated beforehand. "You're just doing that thing that all new mothers do," he said, leaning over the back of the couch to set his hands on Pepper's shoulders. "Which amounts to both worrying too much and not wanting to share." Pepper snorted in response while Bruce just grinned, bending down to kiss her cheek and then her neck. Pepper's skin tingled and burned where his lips brushed it, and she immediately missed the sensation when he pulled away to wander towards the fridge.

"I think the sharing is the bigger problem," Tony murmured, looking away to try and hide the smirk on his face, but Pepper caught it anyway and gave him a light elbow to the side.

"If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black," she responded with the quirk of an eyebrow, but Tony just shrugged it off indifferently.

"Neither of you are really the authority here," Bruce chastised lightly from his place in the kitchen, but he wasn't at all surprised when Tony and Pepper simultaneously threw the words _"neither are you"_ back at him from the couch. He wasn't even going to try to deny it—he'd been hogging Sophie every chance he could get since Tony dragged him into that hospital room. "Maybe we should get going, hm?" he suggested instead, gesturing towards the door with the bottle of water in his hand. "I think Sophie could use a change of scenery _and_ company."

"Fine," Pepper conceded with a small sigh, dropping her gaze back to Sophie who had taken it upon herself to find a comfortable spot curled up against Pepper's chest. "I guess I have to cut the apron strings at some point."

Tony chortled. "Might want to wait until she's old enough to drive before you say that one," he said. "You haven't even cut the apron strings off of _me_ yet."

"And I probably never will," Pepper agreed, patting the hand Tony had on her leg before she moved to stand up. "All right, let's go get this over with before I chicken out and decide to keep her to myself for the rest of the day." Even if they didn't voice it, she know Tony and Bruce were guilty of the same line of thought as they followed her into the elevator. They were all undeniably smitten, and it was rather pathetic how something so small could reduce two part-time superheroes and a full-time powerful, unwavering business executive into a quivering pile of mush.

The elevator let the four of them off on the communal floor then, and Pepper hesitated when she could hear voices drifting from the entrance to the lounge room. This was a much bigger step than she'd anticipated it to be, but when she felt Tony place a hand on her back and give her a little nudge forward, she put it down to another one of those overprotective tendencies that seemed all too common lately.

"Finally came out to see the light of day, did you?" As they rounded the corner into the room, Pepper recognized the teasing tone as Maria's, and her suspicions were confirmed when she met her friend's gaze with a wide smile.

"I could say the same for you," Pepper replied, adjusting Sophie in her arms when she noticed the baby was already fully occupied with scanning her new surroundings. "Been a while since you've shown your face around here, Hill."

"Time really gets away from you when SHIELD owns your ass." Maria grinned, and Steve and Nat seemed to both grumble their agreements from the other sofa. "It has been a while this time though, I'll give you that. Especially since I don't remember anyone being pregnant last time I was here," she added, gesturing towards the baby in Pepper's arms, "aren't you going to introduce us?"

"Yeah, Pep, aren't we?" Tony encouraged, stepping forward to take Sophie into his own arms and walk her forward towards the rest of the people in the room. Pepper handed her over as willingly as she could manage, but most of the worry in her gut was replaced by a curl of warmth as she watched Tony hold Sophie up against his chest so she could see the people who immediately got up and swarmed around the two of them. "Everyone, Sophie. Sophie, this is your Aunt Nat, Uncle Steve, and Aunt Maria," he said, pointing to each of them in turn as if she would actually understand.

"How cute," Steve breathed, a wide, immaculate grin already on his face. He gently touched a finger to the back of Sophie's hand where it was holding onto Tony's shirt, and seemed to hesitate for half a second before he held out both of his hands. "Can I?"

"I suppose," Tony said, making a mockery of a reluctant tone. "Just don't crush her with those huge guns," he said, nodding towards Steve's arms as he carefully transferred Sophie into them. Steve seemed to ignore the jab in favor of smiling down at the little girl in his admittedly large hands that seemed to engulf the baby completely, and Maria chuckled at the sight.

"She's so tiny," she commented, "how old is she?"

"Six weeks," Bruce answered, interjecting for the first time since they'd arrived. "She was a preemie. Today was supposed to be her due date, actually."

Pepper blinked at the remark, not necessarily upset that he brought it up, just surprised that he did. "You remembered that?" she asked quietly, just loud enough for them to hear, and Bruce gave her a warm smile that more or less said " _of course I do"_ as he slid his hand down her back.

"Gotta say, she is pretty damn adorable," Nat put in, one of the infectious grins from the others in the room making its way onto her face. "I'm guessing the Iron Man pajamas are to make up for how she looks nothing like you, right?" she asked, clapping Tony on the shoulder on her way to go stand by Pepper.

"Excuse you, Romanoff, but she totally has my nose."

"Hmm… I don't know," Steve joked, noticeably flicking his eyes between Sophie and her father. "Sorry, Stark, but she's totally Pepper's kid."

Pepper knew a comment like that was going to spark a bickering match, so she wasn't at all surprised when the banter started. She was fairly sure that Tony bickered with Steve just as much as he bickered with her or Bruce or—okay, everyone. Tony bickered with everyone. Still, Pepper just shook her head and let herself relax underneath Bruce's wandering hand, finally satisfied once the worry and hesitation from earlier had been washed away.

"Weird." Natasha's monosyllabic statement broke Pepper out of her thoughts, as did the way she said it as if she'd finally decided that it was the right word with which to start a conversation. "It's weird."

"What's weird?" Pepper asked, even though she had a pretty good idea where Nat was going with the remark.

"Stark with a kid," Nat replied predictably, "it's weird, but it's… nice weird."

"Everyone has been saying that," Bruce said with a breathy laugh, "but I think it's more nice than weird." Pepper didn't feel the need to verbally agree. The gentle smile on her face as she looked Tony a few feet away probably said it for her as she watched him easily take Sophie back into his own arms after Steve's face turned something close to petrified when she started crying, and the speed and ease with which Tony was able to get her to calm down definitely affirmed that Tony Stark with a baby was much more than just _nice._ Though she knew he had his reasons, Pepper didn't think she would ever understand why Tony was afraid that he'd be anything less than a remarkable father.

Tony had gone to sit down in the chair beside where Bruce was standing once Sophie had quieted down, letting her relax around familiar people and familiar sights. Bruce reached over with his free hand to touch Sophie's arm, letting her grab onto his finger for a moment until she let go and he rested his hand on Tony's shoulder.

"So… are the three of you doing the co-parenting thing?" Steve asked after a brief lull in conversation, taking a seat beside Maria on the couch. "You two are still together, right?" he added, looking between Tony and Bruce. Pepper heard Natasha snort beside her, and tried to hide her own amused smirk when she caught sight of Tony's face.

"Is that a courtesy question?" Tony asked, earning a confused arch of Steve's brow. "Because Bruce's hand on Pepper's ass is directly in your line of sight?" Steve sputtered while Bruce blushed wildly, and Pepper turned her smile into Bruce's shoulder as she felt him quickly replace his hand on her upper back. "Yeah, we're doing the co-parenting thing. And the co-dating thing. And the co-fu—" Bruce slapped a hand over his mouth before he could continue, and Pepper was fairly sure that everyone in the room was grateful.

"You're holding a baby," Bruce scolded, and Tony rolled his eyes extra dramatically to make up for his loss of verbal skills. "Clean it up."

"When did that happen?" Maria asked, clearly intrigued by the change in dynamic.

"A few months ago," Pepper answered easily.

" _How_ did that happen?"

Tony, Bruce, and Pepper all paused and exchanged a few glances, silently asking which one of them should be tasked with explaining. Pepper wasn't sure it was really anyone else's business how it happened, much like it wasn't anyone's business how they planned on raising their daughter, but it wasn't as if it was just anyone asking. Steve and Maria were friends, and living in a place like Avengers Tower, everyone's personal life was a regular topic of discussion.

"Um… it's kind of a long story," Bruce said in the most typical, aloof, question-dodging Bruce Banner fashion possible. "We just kind of… fell into it, I guess." Pepper knew that nobody in the room was going to buy that, but she thought Bruce's blasé attempt at a lowly explanation was still rather charming.

"That is the lamest explanation ever." Apparently Tony didn't seem to think it was so charming, or if he did, it certainly didn't show.

Pepper gave him a vaguely disapproving look. "Would you like to outline all the details of our personal lives, then?"

"Gladly." She should have known better. Tony was (in)famous for oversharing, and for taking pleasure in the media circus that normally followed. "Let's take it from the top, shall we? So some very necessary break-up sex resulted in Pep getting pregnant when she was still my girlfriend," Tony started, and Pepper hung her head, immediately regretting the decision to let him off the leash. "But by the time we found out, Pepper was my ex-girlfriend and Bruce was my boyfriend, and we tried to figure it out, but all of us were assholes at one point or another, and there was fighting and kissing behind each other's backs and all that soap-opera shit—until eventually Bruce and I were like, fuck it, let's just ask her to get in on this. And she did. So now we're all each other's boyfriends and girlfriends, and Sophie here has three options for a favorite parent. Which we all know is me."

The room was quiet for a moment, many of them probably trying to wrap their heads around such a blunt explanation, while Pepper was just brainstorming ways to get Tony to _quit swearing_ around their daughter before she was old enough to understand and repeat the language. She was sure it would take a lot of glaring and scolding and probably bribing.

"Well, that's quite the unique 'how my parents met' story for her to tell everyone at school," Maria said once she finally seemed to have processed the information. Pepper couldn't read her expression at first, but it softened barely a second before she let her inner monologue go off on its usual _who gives a damn what anyone thinks?_ speech. "Good that you figured it out, though. Much better family dynamic than the whole split custody thing."

"As long as you're happy," Steve agreed, and Pepper spotted a subtle, knowing smile on Nat's face from the corner of her eye.

"We are." The two little words came from Bruce, surprisingly enough, and Pepper willingly let him pull her in tighter against his side. He looked down at Sophie, still content in Tony's arms, and gently brushed his hand over her tiny head with a smile Pepper was fairly sure she'd never seen since she'd known him. "I think we finally are."

* * *

"Okay, I think I can finally say, with a limited amount of confidence, that she is asleep for the night." Tony made the announcement as he wandered back into the bedroom and flopped onto the free space of bed beside Pepper. He looked just the slightest bit drained, probably from spending close to 45 minutes in the nursery down the hall trying to get what sounded like a fussy baby to finally fall asleep. "I say limited because she'll probably wake up screaming in about an hour. Who's on baby duty tonight?"

"I am," Bruce said easily, barely looking up from his tablet even as Tony's body weight bounced the mattress.

Pepper sank back into the pillows as soon as Bruce spoke, all of the tension finally fleeing her body for the night. "Could it be?" she said, feigning incredulity as she dropped her head onto the pillow and let her hair fan out around her. "Am I actually getting a night off?"

"Appears so," Tony confirmed, and Pepper smiled as he curled up to her side and secured an arm around her waist. _At long last._ Finally, for once, a night she could actually spend relaxing without the hotwired tension that Sophie would wake up in distress and she'd be the sleep-deprived option to go calm her down and get her back to sleep (a feat that usually took the rest of Pepper's normal sleeping hours, hence that haggard bags under her eyes most days). Tony and Bruce insisted on taking over every now and then, but Pepper was _insistent_ on a rotating system, resisting any disruption of the balance she was determined to keep between the three of them.

There was no saying she wouldn't still wake up close to frantically when it was Bruce's turn to go get the little girl, but the idea of a night off was appealing nonetheless.

"You know, Pepper, with this whole rotation thing we have going on, you _have_ gotten a couple nights off before," Bruce pointed out, looking at her over the rim of his glasses. "The problem is you never actually take it." A smile quirked the corner of his lips, and Pepper countered it with a roll of her eyes.

"You're one to talk," she said, shooting a pointed glance at the tablet still in his hands. "And you also know how hard she is to resist." Bruce's ears turned red, and he turned his smile back towards the screen of his tablet, clearly accepting that he'd been caught red-handed. Sophie had all of them wrapped around her little finger, but Bruce was by far wrapped the tightest.

"Man's got a point though," Tony said, his wandering hand stilling on Pepper's waist. "Isn't the whole threesome thing supposed to make parenting easier?"

"Not easier," Bruce said noncommittally, "maybe less overwhelming. But definitely not easier."

"That's the same thing, Banner."

"No it isn't," Pepper agreed, and she heard Tony snort probably in response to being outnumbered again, which was the one downside to the particular arrangement they'd fallen into. "Dealing with stubborn board members might not be overwhelming, but that doesn't mean it's easy."

"Similarly, dragging your ass out of the workshop at 3 a.m. isn't easy, but I wouldn't call it overwhelming either," Bruce added dryly.

"The smell can be," Pepper murmured, earning her a childish pinch from Tony at her side.

"Rude," he retorted, but Pepper brushed it off by running her fingers through his hair and pressing a kiss to his head. "You guys are totally missing the point, though. It's math. There's three of us and one of her—that's three people to feed one kid, change one diaper, pack one lunch... you know. That stuff."

"Yes, but 'that stuff' isn't all the stuff," Pepper replied. She dropped her head back against the pillows again, turning her eyes to the ceiling as she unintentionally let the long list of responsibilities and inevitable hardships wash over her again. It wasn't anything she couldn't handle—she had Tony and Bruce, after all, but that didn't make it any less daunting. "That stuff doesn't include sending her off to school by herself for the first time, or when she starts dating, or when she finally gets old enough to realize that the world isn't the perfect place we tried to make it for her…" Pepper stopped herself before she could go any further. The whole point they'd been trying to make was that the three of them together would make all of this _less_ overwhelming, and there she was, making it worse.

She could feel Tony staring up at her with those giant goddamn Bambi eyes of his, but when she looked down at him, his typically expressive face was a mask that she couldn't quite read. "World's not a perfect place, Pep," he said simply.

"I know it isn't." If anyone knew that, it was them. For that reason, it actually felt silly to say it out loud, and Pepper even smiled, albeit a bit sadly. "Doesn't stop me wanting to try to make it that way for her, though."

"I don't think that ever goes away," Bruce put in, stretching out his free hand to brush a strand of hair off Pepper's face.

"Probably not." Pepper exhaled quietly and fell silent. She was certain that Bruce was right and the instinctual urge would never quite leave her alone, even if it was a feat impossible to achieve. There was every chance that Pepper (and Tony and Bruce, no matter how much they said otherwise) would do everything in her power to keep Sophie safe and protect her from the perils of the harsh world outside, whether it was as petty as the media or as dangerous as her fathers' part-time avenging gigs. Anything to keep her from getting hurt.

Which was inevitable. Pepper knew that. For now though, as long as Sophie was small and innocent enough to be held in their arms, warm and close and safe, Pepper could deal.

She felt Tony shift his arm on her waist and Bruce slide down on the pillows, and another little smile graced her lips when she looked between them. (It seemed to be something she'd been doing a lot lately. Smiling. She didn't mind.) Well, Pepper supposed, she'd done an okay job of trying to keep those two safe and out of trouble by her side. What was one more person?

Her head rolled to the side on the far too fluffy pillow beneath it, and her eyes were met with the side of Bruce's face since he was still fixated on the tablet in his hands. Carefully, she shifted her head from the pillow to his shoulder and reached over to press the sleep button on the top corner of the device, effectively shutting down the screen, and Bruce made a small noise halfway between irritation and defeat. "Don't you think that's enough work for tonight?" Pepper asked, turning her head so her nose brushed his cheek. "You have all day tomorrow to work on all of that."

"Did the president of Workaholics Anonymous just tell someone else 'it can wait till tomorrow'?" Tony said, and rather than responding to the remark, Pepper just slipped the tablet out of Bruce's hands and blindly handed it to Tony for him to put elsewhere.

"You work in bed all the time," Bruce pointed out, and when he turned his head to meet her eyes his lips very nearly brushed hers.

"Yes, but that was before we had a baby and had more time to ourselves," Pepper countered, settling a hand in the center of his chest, "and you know what they say about what to do when the baby is sleeping."

"Sleep while the baby is sleeping?" Bruce said, predictably, eyebrows quirked.

"Something like that." Pepper bent forward and closed the few centimeters distance between their lips, kissing him sweetly for a few seconds until she slid her hand up his chest to cup his jaw. It didn't take Bruce very long to melt into Pepper's arms, his mouth hot and needy against hers, and she was fairly sure that by that point whatever work he'd been doing was long forgotten.

One of the things that was so satisfying about kissing Bruce was just how intensely focused he was on all but fucking her mouth until they both needed a minute to gulp down some air. Tony didn't often spend more than a fleeting moment on her lips before his mouth was on her jaw, her neck, her chest—not that she was complaining. But there was something about the way it made her stomach clench in knots when Bruce traced her mouth with his tongue or trapped her lip between his teeth that just felt so fucking _good,_ and Pepper decided to hell with air.

At some point while Pepper was in her daze, Bruce had taken it upon himself to actually correct the awkward angle they were at by pulling her on top of him. She shivered underneath his wandering hands, and she couldn't quite help the quiet moan that vibrated in her throat when Bruce probably intentionally shifted beneath her and fit his hips snugly against hers. She rocked down against him, just to hear both his and Tony's breath hitch, but the air caught in Pepper's throat when she felt Bruce's hands on her ass, and she couldn't help the laugh that bubbled out of her when he squeezed.

"Gets you every time, doesn't it?" Bruce murmured against her ear, and Pepper could feel him grinning.

"Come on, Pep, you know by now that he's an ass man," Tony teased as he reached over to pat Bruce's thigh. Pepper just rolled her eyes at both of them, and she was about to prevent Bruce from saying anything further before the baby monitor on the nightstand blared Sophie's familiar wails, and the three of them collectively groaned.

Bruce sighed, pecking Pepper on the lips one more time before he reluctantly rolled her back onto the bed and consequently into Tony's waiting arms. "Sorry," he quipped, pushing his glasses back up his nose as he stood up with a crooked smile. "Duty calls."

They watched him amble out the door and down the hall, and it only took a second after he was gone for Pepper to turn her head back towards Tony and ask, "How much you wanna bet he brings her back in here?"

Tony hummed quietly, and Pepper could feel the vibrations as he placed his lips on her neck while he considered their familiar wager. "Bet you a day of paperwork that he doesn't."

"Deal."

Pepper turned over towards him and caught his eyes until he buried his head in her neck again, and she exhaled quietly, relaxed. She could still feel the undercurrent of tension beneath her skin as her ears strained to listen to Sophie's quiet noises through the monitor, but even despite that, just lying there with Tony with the knowledge that her daughter was safe with her other father down the hall left her feeling more content, happier than she had in years.

The sound of quiet footsteps padding back into the room interrupted her thoughts, and Pepper was about to accept defeat and admit that Tony had won their bet before she looked up and noticed a squirming bundle of blankets in Bruce's arms. She heard Tony mutter a defeated _"dammit"_ in her ear, and she just patted his stomach as she turned a disapproving look onto Bruce.

"Bruce," she sighed, watching him carefully slide back into bed beside her as he murmured gentle reassurances to the baby in his arms. "She's never going to learn to sleep in the crib if you always keep her in here with us."

"Such an enabler, Banner," Tony agreed.

"I know, I know," Bruce replied, clearly past his early phase of trying to defend himself for allowing the little girl to make him so weak. "But she was crying and wouldn't stop and... look at her now. Look at how happy she is." He rocked Sophie gently in his arms, and Pepper pulled herself up to look. The crying had probably stopped as soon as Bruce picked her up, just like it usually did, since her face was back to the normal calm, serene expression she seemed to reserve for looking at her parents. "This is the last time. I promise."

"For some reason I severely doubt that," Pepper muttered, her eyes flicking upwards to give him a glance before she looked back down at her daughter. Sophie blinked and gurgled quietly, her eyes fluttering shut just afterwards, and Pepper felt as if she'd quite literally melted right there.

Tony had clambered over the tangle of legs on the bedsheets after Bruce sat down, fitting himself against the man's other side. He looked down at Sophie, probably in awe of how fast she fell asleep in her father's arms when it had taken him close to an hour to even get her to close her eyes earlier, or more likely, just in awe of how something so small could be so beautiful.

"We're hopeless," he sighed, dropping his head down onto Bruce's shoulder.

Pepper didn't feel the need to voice a confirmation. Honestly, she was surprised that it had taken Tony that long to realize it—for her part, at least, she'd been hopeless for a while. With a gentle smile on her lips, Pepper reached out a hand to lightly brush a fingertip over Sophie's tiny nose, then turned her gaze to the two extraordinary men curled up beside her.

Maybe the world wasn't a perfect place, she decided. But there were certainly perfect things in it.

* * *

 **And that's a wrap. Thanks so much to all of you who have read this story and kept with it, I really do appreciate every one of you. If you're interested, you can find me over on AO3 as tonysbruce, since there may or may not be some mini-sequels to this fic in the near future. :) Again, thanks so much!**


End file.
